Reading is a skill that we assume most of our students have, but the truth of the matter is that they often need support to ensure they’re reading critically and not passively.

Purpose for reading

In order to offer supports for students when it comes to their reading task, we first need to identify the purpose for reading. In order to do so, we can ask ourselves several questions before we assign a reading task:

• What is meant to be gained from the reading? 
  • In other words, is this an informational text to provide students with background information on a topic? Will students need to analyze this text in the form of a literary or rhetorical analysis? Is this one of many readings for a synthesis assignment? Thinking about what the students will get out of the reading will help determine how to support them.
• How does their purpose for reading intersect with your purpose as the instructor?
  • What next steps will you take in the course after students have read this text? How does this reading support your goals as the instructor? Thinking about your module/unit-level and course-level learning objectives as you assign readings will help you determine how a reading will move the goals of your course forward.
• How does the purpose for reading intersect with the author’s purpose for writing?
  • Why was the piece written? At what time were they writing the text? What other events were happening around the time of the piece being written? These questions can help determine places where a student may need more support in order to understand this foundational question; knowing what kind of text their reading will allow them to dig deeper into it.

Once these purposes have been identified, we can ask ourselves, “what support would a student need in order to achieve this purpose for reading?” Those supports can come in the form of graphic organizers.

Types of organizers

Depending on what is meant to be gained from the reading, try some of these organizers:

• KWL Chart: This is a three-column organizer that allows students to consider their prior knowledge and interests before reading, typically for informational purposes. Each letter of KWL stands for:
  • K: What students KNOW already (before reading)
  • W: What students WANT to know about the topic (before reading)
  • L: What students LEARNED about the topic (during/after reading)
• Frayer Model: This organizer is typically used for vocabulary acquisition. The word needing to be defined as a result of reading is at the center, and then students fill out four sections:
  • Definition of the term in their own words
  • Characteristics of the term
  • Examples of the term
  • Non-examples of the term
• Though the Frayer Model is typically used in this way, it can be modified for different purposes. For example, if you want students to take a foundational document and make more modern connections, consider having the text at the center of the organizer, and have students make four kinds of connections:
  • Text-to-Self: how does this text connect to me/my life?
  • Text-to-Itself: how does something I’ve read in this text connect to earlier parts of the text? How is the idea developed?
  • Text-to-Text: how does this text connect to other texts I’ve read/watched/listened to?
  • Text-to-World: how does this text connect to world events, past or present?
• The Point Loma Nazarene University Center for Teaching and Learning has a number of examples of reading graphic organizers for download. These organizers typically follow set steps:
  • What key points are being made in the text?
  • What page number is that information found on?
  • What insights can be gained from these key points?
  • How can I apply these insights?
  • Note: There are versions of these organizers that are modified for research and/or peer review!
• Minnesota State University has a number of graphic organizers available for download across many disciplines and for a variety of purposes. Some of these organizers include:
  • Compare and contrast: looking and two texts and noting similarities and differences
  • Dialogue journals: putting the text in conversation with your own thoughts and ideas about it
  • Skimming text organizers: looking for keywords, headers, etc. to gain some insights before diving right into the text
  • Diagram a process: based on the reading, create a timeline, flowchart, diagram, etc.

Luna, Villalón, Martínez-Álvarez, and Mateos (2022) also studied students who were using graphic organizers in a collaborative way, building towards an argumentative synthesis. Through their study, they found that, while students made improvements to their written products with and without the organizers, they made “more in the process intervention.” These organizers could take the form of groups working together to make connections, discussing a text with one another, or taking a section of a text and building off each other.

Impact of using graphic organizers

When graphic organizers are simple and used often, they can improve the ways in which students engage with texts in their courses. Graphic organizers cause students to slow down their reading process, taking reading from being a more passive activity to an active engagement. Depending on the purpose for reading, students can tap into their prior knowledge to build confidence; reflect on their reading before, during, and after reading; and perform high-level metacognitive work.

Using reading graphic organizers doesn’t just improve outcomes when reading; organizers can improve the outcomes of discussion activities and writing tasks–especially writing requiring synthesis of sources.

Lastly–and perhaps most importantly–using reading graphic organizers is a learner-centered approach to assessing students’ reading comprehension and understanding. It gives them the opportunity to create an artifact that they can revisit and build on throughout their time in the course, while still providing the instructor with the opportunity to assess students and hold them accountable for the reading they’re doing.

As always, we would love to see how you’re using graphic organizers for reading in your courses! Feel free to email COLRS at colrs@uis.edu to share what you’re doing with your classes. And if you want to implement these strategies into your own course and need help doing so, reach out to our office anytime!