Semantic Mapping: A Study Skills Strategy

Features a study skill strategy that uses a graphic organizing approach to enhance and improve comprehension and memory of content Semantic mapping, a graphic organizing strategy, has been recom-mended for both special education and regular classroom teachers as a study skill strategy and a way to improve the comprehension of reading materials of all kinds. It has been used successfully by teachers at virtually every grade level to involve students actively in the reading process (Heimlich & Pittelman, 1986). On a semantic map, the organization of concepts is repre-sented in a concrete form (Schwab & Cobble, 1982). The rela-tionships among major concepts and their supporting details are presented visually. The student, actively involved in the process of developing the map, is stimulated to relate prior knowledge to the new material being read or studied (Johnson, Pittleman, & Heimlich, 1986). These maps, or webs, which are a cooperative effort of students and teachers, can be made prior to reading a selection in a basal reader, tradebook, or textbook, and may be added to or reorganized after the selection is read to stimulate in-depth comprehension (Schewel, 1989). The theory of semantic mapping, as a strategy to enhance com-prehension, is based on the concept of schema theory. The under-lying supposition of schema theory is that information is store