A List of Free Graphic Organizers for Teachers and Students

Graphic organizers are visual representations of ideas and topics. They are also called knowledge maps, story maps, concept maps, mind maps, cognitive organizers, advance organizers, or concept diagrams. Below is a list of some interesting links that will provide you  easy and quick  access to some resources and websites where you can read, download and print graphic organizers.

The importance of graphic organizers in education

According to a research published in Mentoring Minds graphic organizers can positively impact education and here is how:"

1. They  are important in organizing essential content
2. Fountas and Pinnell attests that illustrated content tends to remain longer in students minds
3. They bring clarity to ideas and record relationships between facts and ideas
4. They facilitate effective student learning via organizing concepts, ideas and facts graphically
5. They help students think in multiple directions
6. They help students generate mental images to go along with information
7.  They increase comprehension and retention
8. They can improve students classroom performance and increase achievement test scores
9. They engage the learner with a combination of the spoken word with printed text and diagrams"

Here is the list:

1- Easy Note Cards

Easy Notecards is a great educational resource. It offers its visitors a wide range of flashcards. It allows them to create both text based and image based flashcards.

2- Mr. Printables

provides a huge selection of flashcards covering various learning topics such as mathematics, drawing, the alphabets, basic vocabulary ,shapes, scrapbooking, planners, geometry, numbers, words , and more

3- Essay Map

It is like a graphic outline that features the main stages for writing an essay. It has a part for the introduction, and one for developing ideas and the last one for conclusion. I like how this graphic sheet is organized

4- Time Line

Timeline is a free graphic organizer created by Read Write Think. It allows students to organize their notes into engaging timelines that features five different units of measure namely: date, time,event,entry or other. Students ,upon selecting the appropriate entry, can add specific descriptions and place it on the timeline.

5- The Graphic Map

Graphic Map as its name suggests is designed to help students and teachers in their writing and reading activities. It works according to an evaluative system that charts the high and low points related to a certain item or group of items like : chapters in a book , sums of money, events during a span of time, scenes in a play.

6- Note Taker

It is mainly a hierarchical outlining tool which allows students to organize their information into up to five levels. This is indeed a great organizational tool that educators can use to take notes on their readings and research.

7- The Webbing Tool

The Webbing Tool is a free-form graphic organizer and a flowcharting tool that allows “ students to pursue hypertexual thinking and writing”. It is my favorite organizer as it is easy to use and does not require any kind of sin up or download. Just drag your ideas around in the organizer to arrange any layout and relationship that you want.

8- The Story Map

The Story Map is a free set of graphic organizers designed to help teachers and students in prewriting and post reading activities. It contains four key elements of the story together with their graphic representations mainly : Character Map, Conflict Map, Resolution Map, and Setting Map.

9-  The Plot Diagram

The Plot Diagram is a free graphic organizer offered for free by our great resource Read Write Think. This tool is mainly an organizational tool which is shaped like a triangle or better say a pyramid. It is used to map the events of a story in literature work.

10- The Persuasion Map

The Persuasion Map is a great graphic organizer offered for free by Read Write Think. It allows students to map out their arguments for a persuasive or argumentative piece of writing.

11- Compare and Contrast Map

Compare and Contrast Map, as its name suggests, is a tool that allows students to draw their differences and similarities about anything they want , be it characters in a text , political system of countries , or simply state what they like and dislike about a lesson plan.

12- Bio Cube

It allows students to summarize a person’s biography into a neat and well organized sort of outline. It has an intuitive interface where info are organized into different categories. The final printout you get after you are done with customization can be folded into a fun cube shape that can be used for future reference.

14- The Eduplace

Eduplace is really a great site . It offers a set of printable graphs and charts to use in the classroom with your students . These graphs are very handy and easy to use , so there is no need to spend time online trying to build charts or classroom assignment grills

15- Ed Helpers

Edhelpers provides a wide range of graphic organizers covering different topics . These graphs can be downloaded and , printed and used for free.

16- Teachnology

TeAchnology is an awesome resource site for educators .It provides another vision for the integration of technology into education.

17- Schoolastic

Schoolastic is one of the best graphic organizer provider online . It offers a wide range of graphics covering different topics particularly Reading Comprehension.

18- Teacher Vision

It provides engaging and interactive graphic organizers that can be downloaded and printed .

19- Discovery Education

This website includes a section called Kathleen Schrocks Guide for Educators . This guide provides for free a number of teacher helpers in the form of slide shows . These slides cover a wide range of topics dealing with technology and education .

20- Educational Oasis

It provides free graphic organizers for teachers . These organizers are in the form of downloadable and printable sheet . The site contains several organizers tabbed under different categories . Some of these organizers can be filled out before being printed .

21- Holt

Holt offers several educative graphics ranging from organizing graphs to vocabulary ones .Just Click on a graphic organizer to download a PDF of it. Each graphic organizer include teaching notes with lessons and tips on how to use graphic organizers in the classroom.