They say that a picture speaks a thousand words. Why should we let all those words be wasted if there is a better way? When I was younger, I remember wishing that somebody would turn all those lines of words in my books into pictures. My teachers would often come to class with charts which summarized entire chapters. These were easy to understand and very colorful. What I liked most about them, however, was that they made learning fun.
Today, my kids have started studying long lines of words. I have been trying to teach them to use flowcharts and matrices and make their student lives just a little simpler. They have a lot of fun using their crayons and making their charts brighter and prettier.
Of course, more than being fun, graphic organizers of all kinds help enhance learning. They stress on the important concepts in a particular subject of study. They reveal the patterns and associations that exist between a number of different aspects. If you are trying to understand the elements of causality between a number of concepts, a graphic organizer makes that easier to understand too.
Brainstorming is made a whole lot easier when one tries to use charts and...