How Do I Make Sense of Graphs and Charts?

Description of Learner:
Ralph is a 33-year old African American male. He is incarcerated and wants to get his GED while in jail. Ralph has a difficult time staying focused and is easily distracted. On the TABE (Tests of Adult Basic Education: CTB/McGraw-Hill) he scored at the 4.6 grade level for reading. He realizes he has "a way to go," but he asked me to help him focus on a skill that might be useful in a number of the General Educational Development Tests (GED).

Challenge Faced:
Ralph was given a number of practice GED tests. I suggested he look through them and look for any similarities among the sections. He pointed out that in the science, math, and social studies tests he noticed a number of graphs and charts. He stressed that he didn't understand how to interpret or make sense of these graphs and charts. This was a place for us to begin his instruction.

What We Did:
I asked Ralph to study the charts and graphs and find similarities among them. He noted that each had symbols, information running vertically and horizontally and questions that follow each graph and chart. He also noticed that some of the graphs and charts had introductory paragraphs accompanying them. Ralph's observations became our starting point. First, we looked at the title and legend or key. I asked what information he found. Then we looked at the vertical and horizontal axes, and I asked the same question of each axis. If there was an introductory paragraph, Ralph read this and then read the questions that followed.

Analysis:
This step-by-step process of breaking down the whole into parts helped Ralph stay on track. Reading the title offered Ralph a main idea. The symbols in the legend or key represented a word or phrase in the graph or chart. After reading the labels on the vertical and horizontal axes (especially any words in parentheses), Ralph came to a better understanding of what was being measured. Finally, reading the introductory paragraph (if one accompanied the graph or chart) completed the process. Ralph then progressed to the questions with confidence in himself and his ability to answer them.

What I Learned:
Understanding graphs and charts is similar to reading a story. There is a main idea, details, and conclusions to be drawn. The questions evaluate the reader's understanding. For Ralph, this comparison and then the step-by-step plan enabled him to stay focused and achieve success.

How important do you think the process was to enable Ralph to get the answer?
This process was important to Ralph, because it gave him a mental map to follow when he confronted graphs and charts. This became a tool for Ralph when gaining meaning from graphs and charts. It also helped him stay focused, as he followed a step- by-step plan of action.

Did Ralph tell you what it was that made the graphs/charts hard for him to understand?
Ralph felt the graphs and charts were confusing, because they seemed so technical with lines, bars, words, and numbers filling the space. He didn't know where to begin.

Will this process apply to reading for Ralph?
In many situations the process will most definitely apply to reading. The steps may be modified somewhat, but by having a specific plan of action, Ralph can work on text comprehension. As is, this strategy could apply when reading news stories and math word problems.

How did you know that Ralph had internalized this process?
I gave Ralph opportunities to teach his peers in small groups, while I observed how he taught the process.

Challenges Encountered	Making sense of visual information/graphics in text books.
Skills Addressed	Reading and interpreting graphs and charts.
Strategies Used	Part to the whole; learner-directed problem solving; fostering self-confidence.
Learning Systems Employed	Emotional (working on something meaningful to student); Social (teaching the process to peers); Cognitive (developing the skills of reading and interpreting charts and graphs); Reflective (teaching someone else forced the student to reflect on what he learned).

With this straight-forward step-by-step approach to reading charts and graphs you engaged all but one of the brain's natural learning systems. If you were to include rods and other manipulatives to construct some graphs and charts, you would also engage the physical learning system.