The effect of semantic mapping instruction on prose comprehension of below‐level college readers

Abstract

College freshmen participating in a remedial reading program were assigned to one of three reading instruction conditions: direct instruction in the use of mapping strategies (N = 16); Herber's (1978) functional approach (N = 12); or a control condition involving reading and discussing expository essays (N = 12). Students were tested before and after the 8‐week intervention on comprehension of textually explicit, textually implicit, and scriptally implicit questions. Students exposed to the mapping intervention demonstrated superior posttreatment performance on both textually explicit and textually implicit questions. No significant differences were observed on scriptally implicit questions. Results were interpreted as indicating the advantages of semantic mapping instruction for below‐level readers.