The Influences of Concept Mapping Strategy on Reading Comprehension of Those Students Challenging in Studying Invalid Books at Some High Schools

The aim of this study is to investigate the applicability of drawing concept maps on reinforcing reading comprehension of students at some high schools. Teachers encourage students to draw formatted forms of main and sub main concept maps for each reading passage. Students are encouraged to connect these maps to each other by some lines. By administrating standard reading proficiency tests to 70 male and 90 female students at two high schools, 100 students in both genders were separately selected and divided to four groups with equal number of students. Experimental groups were taught how to draw concept maps by showing them some reading passages prepared in concept mapped forms. These students were motivated to draw concept maps of three reading passages after teaching them new words. The latter one was their treatment. New words and passages of mentioned lessons were translated into students’ native language for control groups traditionally. Because some students were absent during this study, the scores of 15 students in each group were finally analyzed. The results revealed that treatment had positive effects on reading comprehension of the students. It is recommended to use concept mapping as a reading strategy where the background of the students in speaking English is weak.