Use a variety of pre-reading strategies (e.g., organize prior knowledge using a graphic organizer, explore significant words to be encountered, relate text to prior personal and historical experiences and current events). 0401.8.1

Links verified on 10/31/2010

1. Character Trading Cards - This tool provides a fun and useful way to explore a character in a book or as a prewriting exercise when creating characters for original stories. Student Interactive from Read/Write/Think
2. Circle Plot Diagram - The tool can be used as a pre-writing graphic organizer for students writing original stories with a circular plot structure (e.g., If You Take a Mouse to School), as well as a post-reading organizer used to explore the text structures in a book. Student Interactive from Read/Write/Think
3. Concept Maps Explained - Concept maps and story webs are visual ways to structure ideas. (sample included) [This expired link is available through the Wayback Machine Internet Archive. If the page doesn't load quickly click on Impatient? at the bottom right of the page.]
4. Drag and Spell - Drag a vowel sound into the slot to spell the word correctly. Use the slow/fast slider to increase the challenge.
5. Education World Templates - seventeen graphic organizers to download and print or edit
6. Essay Map - The Essay Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to organize and outline their ideas for an informational, definitional, or descriptive essay. Student Interactive from Read/Write/Think
7. Exploratree - free online library of thinking guides - you can print, but you can not save
8. Five main types of organizers - links showing examples of many types
9. Follow the Clues - a graphic organizer to help your students make predictions about a story (K-2 and 3-5 activities included)
10. Graphic Organizer Links - links to a large number of graphic organizers provided by Vermilion Parish School Board in Abbeville, LA - Second page of links from the same school system
11. Graphic Organizer Templates - Use these Graphic Organizer templates with your class using a given story.
12. Graphic Organizers from Education Place - 38 graphic organizers to print, all in pdf format
13. Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers - Three dozen different templates are available at this site. Click on a graphic organizer to download a PDF of it. Once you’ve downloaded an organizer, type your comments and print it.
14. Index of Graphic Organizers - from Inspiration
15. Instructions on how to use Excel to create a graphic organizer
16. Interactive Graphic Organizers Sampler - This series of thinking tools covers a range of activities. These tools let you actively construct, examine, and modify your ideas. Currently seven of the planned seventeen thinking tools are available; look for the titles in green on the left.
17. Kinds of Concept Maps - examples of four major categories of concept maps [This expired link is available through the Wayback Machine Internet Archive. If the page doesn't load quickly click on Impatient? at the bottom right of the page.]
18. Main Idea Graphic Chart - worksheet - Fill in the supporting sentences that best fits the main idea.
19. Notetaker from Read/Write/Think - Useful for a wide variety of reading and writing activities, this outlining tool allows students to organize up to five levels of information. Student Interactive from Read/Write/Think
20. Pre-Reading Activities - list of pre-reading activities and games [This expired link is available through the Wayback Machine Internet Archive. If the page doesn't load quickly click on Impatient? at the bottom right of the page.]
21. Problem/Solution Chart - Fill out this chart as a whole class activity brainstorming session to learn to recognize problems and solutions in stories. This uses cause and effect, but can be adapted.
22. Read/Write/Think Webbing Tool - The Webbing Tool provides a free-form graphic organizer for activities that ask students to pursue hypertextual thinking and writing. Student Interactive from Read/Write/Think
23. Sandcastle Quiz - Build a sandcastle by clicking on the sandpie with the correct spelling to fill in the gaps in the words written in the sand.
24. Star Words - This activity provides practice in sight recognition and spelling of high frequency words
25. Story Board - a graphic organizer to help your students make predictions about a story (K-2 and 3-5 activities included)
26. Story Map - The Story Map interactive is designed to assist students in pre-writing and post-reading activities by focusing on the key elements of character, setting, conflict, and resolution. Student Interactive from Read/Write/Think
27. Teaching about Conflict in Literature - Lesson Plan - uses graphic organizer to plot out stories.
28. Teaching Tips: Graphic Organizers - A list of links from eMINTS and The Curators of the University of Missouri
29. Text 2 Mind Map - a web application that converts texts to mind maps - Enter a structured list of words or sentences and Text2Mind Map will interpret it and make a mind map out of them that you can print.
30. Thinking Maps - several different examples of ways to organize information.
31. Tips on Making Your Own Concept Maps [This expired link is available through the Wayback Machine Internet Archive. If the page doesn't load quickly click on Impatient? at the bottom right of the page.]
32. Venn Diagram, 2 Circles - This interactive tool allows students to create Venn Diagrams that contain two overlapping circles, enabling them to organize their information logically. Student Interactive from Read/Write/Think

site for teachers | PowerPoint show | Acrobat document | Word document | whiteboard resource | sound | video format | interactive lesson | a quiz | lesson plan | to print