We all strive to make our classrooms attractive and functional. Decorating the walls with posters is an easy, inexpensive way to make your room look fun and engaging. But did you realize that posters can also be used as teaching tools? Teaching with reference posters can help your students understand processes, illustrate a concept, or capture their interest. Read on for some tips on how to use them!
Reference posters – an often-neglected teaching tool
Reference posters are often overlooked as aids to instruction since they do have limitations on how much information they contain, which may be why they tend to be overlooked.
But it’s this limited, concise aspect of learning posters that can make them very effective by allowing students to focus on one specific concept, process, or fact. It’s a necessity in today’s classrooms to have as many, varied types of instructional tools as possible to reach our diverse student population. You can easily incorporate posters into your lesson plans.
What Should You Look for in a Good Learning Poster?
Every poster is not a learning poster. Decorative posters are certainly wonderful to have in your classroom, but they don’t add to the learning process. Since many reference posters are both eye-catching and beautiful, they can serve as both decor and instruction.
There are certain characteristics that learning posters have and decorative posters do not. They should:
- stimulate students’ interest or pique their curiosity.
- be attractive and eye-catching.
- illustrate a process, skill, or concept
- provide printables for students to use
- come with some guidance on how to best use them in instruction
- give suggestions for more activities
Not all reference posters will meet all of these criteria, but the more that can be ticked off, the better the poster will be as a learning tool.
Learning Posters for Teaching Pronouns
Pronouns aren’t the most exciting thing to think or learn about. This is where reference posters can make a big difference!
This Pronouns Reference Poster Set provides flexibility for the teacher. Use it as both a teaching and reference tool, as well as providing students with a useful review display when necessary.
The pack includes sample passages showing the use of pronouns in action!
Even after you’ve finished teaching pronouns, you can leave the posters on the wall for colorful reminders. And if you’d like some more tips on teaching pronouns in an engaging way, see my earlier blog post.
If you try using reference posters, let us know how it goes!
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