Free Printable KWL Chart

Learning how to think around topics they find complicated is of immeasurable importance for children, particularly as they’re growing. Using a KWL Chart can help students of all ages to log and organise thought processes.

What is a KWL Chart?

A KWL chart is a surprisingly simple and effective chart that a child can maintain while thinking through confusion or unwieldy topics. Comprising three columns: What I Know, What I Wonder and What I Learned, students are encouraged to fill the sections out as they progress through a thought process or any form of research.

Teachers can utilise personal KWL charts for each student to help them when learning new topics in the curriculum. A great way to really let children take part is to allow them to log their own personal lessons that they’re learning. Anything from why a snail is so slow and whether or not they want to grow up to be a police officer. With a KWL chart, a child will feel like they are in taking control of their own learning, and they begin to see the whole world as a classroom, which is key.

Printable KWL Chart
Click Here To Download KWL Chart Templates

KWL Charts are can be used in multiple teaching activities. From Science where they’re first learning how to run experiments to Math, where they’re struggling to understand a theorem.  Teachers will have greater understanding of what their students need help with and the children themselves will be able to quickly recall a topic’s details as they’d have their personalised quick notes always to hand.

Free Printable KWL Chart

All the printables on our site are free, as we believe in sharing the tools that children need to excel – on a global scale! Feel free to download our blank KWL chart and use it in your classroom, home or temple.

KWL Chart Benefits

Involving students in an active form of creative learning will go far towards increasing their interest in learning new things and education as whole. While the Know-Wonder-Learned Chart is simple, it is incredibly effective. Children spend an inordinate amount of time being taught, but using a chart like this, they find that they themselves enjoy being their own teachers. They are writing their lessons, not a smelly grown up.

How to Use a KWL Chart Effectively?

KWL charts are flexible. There is no particular technique involved, and students will write their own notes and thoughts. IF you find a child struggling, it might be helpful to give them a title or subject.

Teachers and guardians can track the learning stages of a student, and use that knowledge to help them learn more topics. In the first column, students write their prior knowledge regarding a topic. They are then encouraged to think about the subject and their existing knowledge, and to log those thoughts as well. When they’ve learnt something at the end, they write it in the final column.

KWL Chart and Your Child’s Future

While it may not seem it at first, this will set your child or students up for future academic achievements. Dissertations, articles, blogs, research papers etc all use this exact system. An initial section detailing current research and studies existing on the topic, then the question that is being sought to answer and finally the conclusion. This is exactly how a research paper is formatted. The KWL Chart is a research paper in its infancy, but it’s a great start.

Teachers should monitor a child’s KWL Chart, their improvement or struggles after comparing their prior knowledge to their research. Some students will find it easier to communicate their ideas or thoughts about a topic through the chart.

A great use of the KWL Chart is Educational Recall. Students can use their KWL charts when preparing for a test or finishing assignments. Using the charts will help them to focus on the parts of topics that they had struggled with initially rather than reviewing concepts they already understand. Particularly when they are short of time. They can even create fresh ones to further their knowledge on the same topic, maintaining a file for it as their knowledge grows.

The KWL chart is an effective tool that helps children to harness their creative learning capabilities. It can help with improving comprehension skills overall. KWL charts are very easy to utilise, and will likely become a core part of your child’s learning process.

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