"Visual Literacy Supports" from Paula Kluth

Graphic organizers are a great way to help visual learners in the classroom.  As the article mentions, Inspiration software is a great way to help students with these organizers, and I myself have used it as well.  This is a program that I will definitely have available to my students in the classroom, and it can even help me to present information to the students, and have them fill in blanks.  I wish programs such as these were available to me when I was in elementary school because it would have helped me a lot since I am a very visual learner.  In the article I also like the way that the author suggests that the students could create their own picture books.  Not only is it a useful adaptation for visual (and other) learners, but it engages the students more, and gives them ownership of the ideas and material they are studying.  This is something I would use in my classroom.  And thirdly, I like the way that the author talked about the 'fascination-focused-materials', and how they can be used in the classroom.  One of the suggested fascinations was trains, which can be used as a topic of study over many subject areas.  The student can draw trains, they can study them throughout history, they can try to understand how they work engineeringly and so on.  I think teachers should work with their students fascinations instead of stifling them which is typically done.