Overview of Textmapping

Textmapping is a graphic organizer technique that can be used to teach reading comprehension and writing skills, study skills, and course content. It is practiced on scrolls [http://www.textmapping.org/scrolls.html], which are an alternative environment to books. Textmapping and scrolls can be used strategically, but they are not strategies. They are enabling technologies - simple, basic tools which can be used for reading and classroom instruction. The same strategies that can be taught in books can be taught more clearly and explicitly by using scrolls [http://www.textmapping.org/scrolls.html] and mapping [http://www.textmapping.org/mapping.html].

Textmapping enables teachers to clearly and explicitly model reading comprehension, writing and study skills in the course of regular classroom instruction.

Textmapping shines a light on the pre-reading process. It focuses more attention on, and spends more time with, the text itself - lingering on the page, delaying abstraction, forcing readers to engage in a more careful in-context comprehension of both the big picture and the details, and enabling teachers to explicitly and systematically model comprehension processes.

It is low-tech, easy to learn, easy to teach, requires no special equipment, and can be adapted easily and inexpensively for use in the classroom. All you need is access to a copier, tape or glue-stick, and colored pencils, markers, or crayons.

People commonly confuse Textmapping with Semantic Mapping, Concept Mapping, Story Mapping, and other so-called mapping techniques - all of which are actually diagramming techniques. For more on this, see a comparison of Textmapping to other graphic organizers [http://www.textmapping.org/researchCall.html#diagrammingCompare].

Perhaps the best way to understand Textmapping is to make a scroll [http://www.textmapping.org/making.html] and map it [http://www.textmapping.org/mapping.html] yourself. To get started, click Next >> [http://www.textmapping.org/scrolls.html]|

The Textmapping Project seeks to contribute to the improvement of reading comprehension skills instruction.
Read more about The Project >>