One way that teachers can assist students to learn from their textbooks is through the use of verbal-spatial representations of text structure. This report offers teachers and teacher educators information about learning to make idea maps for instructional use with elementary science texts. Idea maps, which are verbal-spatial representations of…

Visual representations of the main ideas of information text (frames) help middle-grade students learn from reading. A study investigated frame development by middle-grade teachers. Twenty-seven teachers worked alone and collaboratively to frame experimental passages that had been selected from content area textbooks in social studies and science.…