Graphic organizers are a great extension to DEAR reading. Once your child completes his or her reading for 20 - 25 minutes, try having them complete a venn diagram or a character trait chart based on the recent chapters read.

What Are Graphic Organizers?
You can call them graphic organizers, pictorial organizers, webs, maps, concept maps, or whatever other name you wish to give them, but graphic organizers are basically visual ways to represent information. Graphic Organizers arrange information:

• according to main ideas, subtopics, and details
• in sequence such as beginning, middle, and end
• to show the relationships between major events in a story
• according to the similarities or differences between two or more concepts
• by its components, as in the elements of a story such as problem and solution
• ...and lots of other ways

Below are different graphic organizers with a description, some sample copies, and a blank copy. Please use them as you wish. This is a great way to challenge your child and reflect about what they have read!

Story Board
Description: Your students can use this graphic organizer to identify the sequence of events in a story or a sequential task.

Train Track Story Board
Description: Your students can use this graphic organizer to identify the sequence of events in a story or a sequential task.

Sequence Chart
Description: List steps or events in time order.

Venn Diagram
Description: Describe and compare characteristics of items (things, people, places, events, ideas, etc) for making connections or posing questions.

Character Traits
Description: Characters (and real-life people) have unique attributes called traits. Use this organizer to assist students in writing out character traits.

Key Points
Description: This graphic organizer uses pictures of keys to remind students of this task and to help them identify the main points in their reading.

Problem-Solution
Description: Helps students focus on the four areas critical to problem-solving: identifying the problem, listing the consequences or results of that problem, and proposing solutions.

Cause-Effect
Description: Identifying cause and effect relationships within a story helps students focus on two important elements of comprehension: what happens in the story and why it happened.

Circle Chart
Description: By depicting informational categories as the segments of a circle, students begin to tie the information together as parts of a whole rather than isolated facts.
Classifying Chart
Description: Students use this chart to classify information by categories-a practical skill for many learning areas. As they classify, students compare information and make connections to what they already know. This chart helps them visually organize the information for future use.

The Five W's (Version 1)
Description: Five W's diagrams are a type of graphic organizer that let the student think about and list the "Who, When, Where, What, and Why" of a story or event in a simple visual way.

The Five W's (Version 2)
Description: Five W's diagrams are a type of graphic organizer that let the student think about and list the "Who, When, Where, What, and Why" of a story or event in a simple visual way.

Research Organizer
Description: This Research Organizer helps students think about, organize, and record the information they collect for a project or report.

Story Map (Version 1)
Description: A way for students to identify key elements of a story. The setting, characters, problem, solution, and key events.

Story Map (Version 2)
Description: A way for students to identify key elements of a story. The setting, characters, problem, solution, and key events.

Story Map (Version 3)
Description: A way for students to identify key elements of a story. The setting, characters, problem, solution, and key events.