Printable KWL Chart – Free Graphic Organizer
Are you in search of a printable KWL chart? Or perhaps you want to know what a KWL chart even means? The Know, Want, Learn strategy is used to help students understand a topic and explore it further. This KWL chart PDF can be download for free at the bottom of the post. You can print it or use it digitally to reflect on any topic or skill! It even includes a printable version with dotted lines to help students with handwriting.
What is the KWL Strategy?
The KWL strategy represents the information about a topic or written text. Students reflect on what they know, what they want to know, and what they learned. By incorporating a students’ background knowledge, it can help to improve comprehension of written text or support motivation to learn new material or skills.
Step 1 – Record What You KNOW in the Printable KWL Chart
The first step on the printable KWL chart is to write down what ever you already KNOW about the topic. For example, if the student is reading about horses, they would write down everything they know about horses already.
Perhaps you want your student to learn a new skill i.e. jumping rope. What do they know already about jumping rope?
If working with a group of students, they can brainstorm together on everything they know about the topic. If they have a large number of ideas, help them organize the information into categories.
Step 2 – Record What You WANT to Know
In the second column, students can write down or type in the digital version what they WANT to know on the KWL chart. For the horses example, perhaps they want to learn about different breeds of horses. For jumping rope, students may want to learn about different types of jump ropes or styles of jumping rope. This can be recorded as statements or questions.
Step 3 – Reflect on What you LEARNED on the KWL Chart
The third column on the KWL printable chart is where students can reflect on what they LEARNED. Write or type examples of different horse breeds or tips on different jump ropes and whether they helped you learn the skill.
Benefits of Using the KWL Strategy
This learning strategy helps students:
- recognize and remember prior knowledge and information on the topic.
- to have a reason for learning more about the topic.
- reflect, monitor, and acknowledge that they learned more information about the topic or skill.
Reference: Ogle, D.M. 1986. K-W-L: A teaching model that develops active reading of expository text. Reading Teacher 39: 564-570.
Do You Need More Graphic Organizers?
This collection of Graphic Organizer Templates are visual and spatial displays that make associations between related facts and concepts more noticeable. It is available in printed and Google Slides format so you can use them digitally too!
Download your FREE Digital and Printable KWL Chart PDF Template
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This freebie includes the printable versions or the KWL chart and a digital version where students can type into the gray boxes on the graphic organizer.
