The Effects of Student - Initiated Cognitive Mapping on Reading Comprehension and Reading Strategy Skills of Elementary Students with Reading Disability

Jeong, Keun Young; Park, Hyunsook

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2001;6(2): 406-427.

Keun Young Jeong^` , and Hyunsook Park^`

정근영(Jeong, Keun Young)| 박현숙(Hyunsook Park)

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of student - initiated cognitive mapping on literal, reasoning and applicative reading comprehensions and reading strategy skills of elementary students with reading disability. For this purpose, 20 4th and 5th graders were selected. They were divided into two groups, experimental and control, 10 subjects each. In the experimental group, the subjects were trained by the direct instruction method of student - initiated cognitive mapping strategy with expository text structures. Each expository text structure was composed of seven basic structures Definition, Example, Enumeration, Comparison/Contrast , Temporal/Locational, Causation, Problem/ solving and Mixed structures. For the control group, the traditional teaching method of repeated reading and asking questions was used. This experiment was conducted for 10 40-minute sessions each day. To test the effects of this experiment, pre- and post - tests of reading comprehension and readingstrategy skill were used. The data collected were analyzed by ANCOVA utilizing pretest scores of reading comprehension and reading strategy skill as covariates. The results of this study are as follows: (1) A significant difference was found between the two groups in literal, reasoning, and applicative reading comprehension, showing significantly higher performance in the experimental group. (2) In terms of reading strategy skills, a significant difference was found between the two groups. Participant s showed significantly higher performance in the experimental group of student - initiated cognitive mapping strategy. Based on the results, it could be concluded that the student - initiated cognitive mapping strategy is an effective method of improving the reading comprehension and reading comprehension skills of elementary students with reading disability.