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GO! Chart

 

Who?

  • The GO! Chart can be used at all grade levels.

  • However, READ: Seventy Strategies to Support Reading Success suggested using the strategy in PreK-8. 

  • This chart can be utilized with small groups or with whole group.

What?

  • A GO! Chart is a hierarchical graphic organizer that engages students' thinking at progressively higher levels before, during, and after reading. 

  • The teacher guides the class through a discussion to create the chart.

Why?

  • The purpose of a GO! Chart is to:

    • ​Activate and build topic knowledge prior to reading

    • Identify content-related vocabulary words

    • Share understandings of the text

    • Encourage wonderings that go beyond the text

    • Help students make connections with the content

    • Organize final thoughts about the story

When?

  • GO! Charts can and should be used before reading, during reading, and after reading.

How?

  • The teacher draws a blank GO! Chart on a large piece of bulletin board paper and introduces a story to the class.

  • The students use clues from the title and the cover to make predictions about what the text might be about, while the teacher records their predictions in the first column of the chart. With each prediction, the teacher prompts the students to share their thinking and rationale for the prediction. Students continue giving predictions, with the teacher providing additional clues as needed.

  • The teacher then reviews the predictions, which students use to predict words the author might use in the story.

  • As the students provide the words, they connect each to a prediction and provide a rationale for their thinking. 

  • The students then read the story.

  • After reading, the class revisits the story and covabulary predictions in order to confirm or disconfirm each contribution. 

  • The teacher then guides the students in completing the next three columns: 

    • Understandings: which help students share things that noticed while reading

    • Interpretations: which extend their thinking about things not explicitly stated in the story

    • Connections: helps students make a personal connection to what has been read

  • Students then use a graphic organizer to organize their thoughts about the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

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