Mind Mapping and Its Effect on Developing Reading Comprehension of Preparatory Stage Students

Abstract

The present study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of a mind map strategy on developing third year preparatory stage students' reading comprehension skills. The problem of inadequate reading comprehension skills of the participants of the study was documented through a pilot study (a test on general reading comprehension skills and another one on the students' prescribed story "A Journey to the Center of the Earth"). Findings from research suggest that using mind maps add large effect to teaching and the use of these instructional tools facilitates greater comprehension. Studies by researchers and teachers alike would anecdotally agree that teaching comprehension occurs best when a variety of teaching strategies takes into account the various learning styles students can best employ. Teaching these strategies will provide the students with a scaffold for organizing information, to make links and develop common understanding of the story. The present study tries to link some text organization to research results, in this case the effect of using mind mapping and visualizing to improve the reading comprehension of students. Both strategies engage the working memory or retention of key information with students who have displayed significant deficits in reading comprehension and lacked any coherent strategy or technique to apply in this situation. Two third year preparatory classes were randomly selected from Taba Mixed Experimental Preparatory School, in the academic year 2012-2013. One class was taught through a mind mapping strategy to represent the experimental group and the other class received regular instruction to represent the control group. Two pre/ post tests, a test on general reading comprehension skills and another one on the students' prescribed story "A Journey to the Center of the Earth" were given to both groups before and after the treatment. The results provided support of the hypotheses of the study and showed evidence that there were statistically significant differences at 0.01 level between the mean scores of the experimental group students and the control group students on the post administration of the tests on general reading comprehension skills and on the students' prescribed story "A Journey to the Center of the Earth" in favor of the experimental group. Results also, showed improvement in the experimental group students' performance on the two reading comprehension pre/ post tests in favor of the post administration of the tests. Hence, the positive findings of the study showed the effectiveness of the mind mapping strategy on developing third year preparatory students' reading comprehension.

Keywords: visual learning; mind mapping; reading comprehension.