Students with Dyslexia may need assistance in organizing their thoughts to complete their assignments and notes. As they may prefer visual learning, presentations in the form of flowcharts and tables may help. Looking into it deeply, these graphic organizers assist students by providing better details.
Not only in better executive functioning, there are multiple other insights comprehending which can enlighten you on the better implementation of these organizers. Traversing through this post, we ensure to establish how graphic organizers assist Dyslexics.
Graphic organizers- Comprehending their significance
Graphic organizers are pictorial representations of crucial information to help students to better build up their understanding. Students can use these strategies to see how concepts are ordered in the context of a topic. Graphic organizers give pupils a framework for organizing their thoughts.
By making abstract concepts more real and linking new information to past knowledge, graphic organizers aim to facilitate more meaningful learning and enhance understanding and retention of new content.
The impact of graphic organizers on people with learning disabilities can be inferred from various research. Resea rch by Lopez studied the effect of these organizers on Dyslexics in developing reading comprehension. When easy-to-read stories were provided in the handbook, it was observed that these candidates could better decode phonemes and structures of the story.
Below are a few of the advantages of using graphic organizers in the learning process:
- Organizing information: It is difficult for the brain to decode and assimilate a significant volume of information. The information may be rationally organized using the visual organizer A timeline, for example, is particularly useful for recalling the chronological order of historical events.
- Keeps the student engaged. Graphic organizers tend to retain the focus keeping the student engaged for s long time. The multisensory approach is often assisting to keep students engaging, graphic organizers come under the same umbrella.
- Enhances the thinking process: When the concepts are taught with visually appealing organizers, students can understand the setup easily. Graphic organizers help students to link the information making it easy to comprehend and facilitate the thinking process.
Learning difficulties and graphic organizers
Dyslexia can bring about multiple shortcomings in the learning process of an individual which can make them take additional time to manage and master multiple concepts. When it comes to internalizing new skills and concepts, many people with dyslexia prefer learning visually, which means they benefit from working creatively with images and graphic organizers rather than just words.
Students with dyslexia typically struggle with reading and writing, therefore introducing graphic organizers into the curriculum/instruction will boost their confidence, and reinforce learning processes making it more enjoyable for them.
Below are a few the examples of how graphic organizers help students with dyslexia:
- Comprehending the concepts: Students with dyslexia can use graphic organizers to comprehend the connections between numerous bits of information that they would not have seen otherwise. These kinds of organizers are very beneficial for assisting pupils in grasping complex topics.
- Evaluation and progress measurement: Mentors can make note of the capabilities of a candidate with graphic organizers. With this idea, they can make strategies to enhance and teach them yet more engagingly.
- Encourages self-study: Students can more quickly familiarize themselves with a lesson by employing graphic organizers for note-taking, analyzing, studying, and so on. This allows them to learn topics and concepts on their own with easy writing practice.
- Motivation: Visual appeal are often more enticing to comprehend compared to a piece of text. With this edge, graphic organizers act on motivating children to learn effortlessly as a part of the game or activity.
Special graphic organizers for dyslexics
Listed below are unique choices of graphic organizers for students with dyslexia to better their learning process.
1. Venn diagram
A Venn diagram is a visual organizer with two circles that connect. This sort of organizer is used to find similarities and contrasts. Students can use them to represent how the themes differ in the outside parts of the circles yet are similar in the shared interior space of the circles.
For instance, the difference between the moon revolution and the earth revolution can be listed in different parts of a Venn diagram. Common attributes like full circle, and eclipse can come in the interior space. Whereas time taken for revolution and other diverse attributes come in respective outside spaces.
2. Story map
A story map is an interactive presentation of multiple phases of a passage or a story. The simplest form can be dividing it into the beginning, middle, and ending. Teachers can use this graphic organizer to make students understand the elements of storytelling, retelling, and other major components. Long story maps are also known as narrative maps. These can be employed to get a detailed idea of the story.
3. Biography graphic organizer
A biography graphic organizer is a tool for collecting and organizing significant facts about a character from a novel, autobiography, film, or other sources, as well as any notable person. Writers and students can use these organizers to quickly record all attributes of a character or a person.
A biography graphic organizer may not have a definite format. One may mention all W’s in different boxes, or they can divide crucial information like birth, death, achievements, and more into different sections of the planner. The simplest idea is to break down the page into boxes and use graphics to design one.
4. KWL chart
KWL is the short form of :
- I Know
- I Want to Know
- I Learned
A KWL chart can be easily prepared by dividing the page into three different columns for each element listed above. First, the students list out what they know and put them in the “I Know” column. Based on these postulates, they can now list down the “I want to know” column. These are the topics or points they need to learn. Now, with this guided chart, they can organise their learning materials and start retaining. Once each of the points gets completed, children can start adding content to the “I Learned” list.
This three-phased application of the KWL chart can help the students to understand what they know and what they need to learn-thereby organizing their learning schedules.
5. Concept map
It is the process of presenting hierarchical data in an organized way with bubbles and arrows. This method makes it easier for the students to understand the subtopics of each concept clearly. Also, they help in bringing about a clear picture of the concept on a single page.
Concept maps are applied in classrooms in a number of areas. For instance, while teaching operations, the teacher can draw four bubbles below “Math operations” with one operation in each of these bubbles. This way, children can easily comprehend that all these symbols come under the umbrella of operations.
6. T chart
T-chart is often used to present two comparative entities or sides of a concept. In this presentation, the whole page is divided into two parts to present different views on either side. For instance, to represent the benefits and cons of an IEP plan can be presented in detail on both sides of a T-Chart7.
Concluding thoughts
From comprehending concepts to motivating the students, there are various ways in which graphic organizers are beneficial for students with dyslexia. This is because traditional note-taking and textbook reading can be difficult for the learning disabled. Apart from being assistive technologies, graphic organizers also make the management of content easier. With these tools, instructors can now convert pieces of text into visually appealing posters. This way not only does planning to retain facts get easier, but also gives positive results to students. Mull over the list that we have stated above and see which of these can be the best option for you or your child.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,