Story Map
Overview
Providing a story map ahead of time or having students create a map during or after reading helps learners understand and practice Narrative Skills. A story map visually highlights and organizes important elements of a text to support deeper reading comprehension and support Foundational Writing Skills.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch how this elementary teacher uses a story map while she is reading aloud with a small group. By using this visual map to orient students to pay attention to the characters and setting in the book, she guides their focus and supports their comprehension of important story elements.
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Learn how a digital product, such as Kidspiration, can allow learners to create complex story maps to visualize and enhance their learning. Through the creation process, learners sort and organize information from a text into meaning with a dynamic graphic organizer.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More External Memory Aids Strategies
Easy access to high frequency words promotes sight word recognition as students see the words repeatedly.
Rhyming, alliteration, and other sound devices reinforce language development by activating the mental processes that promote memory.
A mnemonic device is a creative way to support memory for new information using connections to current knowledge, for example by creating visuals, acronyms, or rhymes.
Cards with strategies for managing emotions help students remember how to act when faced with strong feelings.
Timers help students learn to self-pace and transition.
A word wall helps build Vocabulary for reading fluidity and support Foundational Writing Skills such as spelling.
