The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of text mapping as a strategy for improving the reading comprehension skills, of four high school students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) in a self-contained freshman technical language arts classroom. Using a multiple baseline design across participants, each student received individualized training in the purpose, use, and completion of both the teacher and student-generated text maps. During the first intervention phase, students read a passage and completed a teacher-generated text map, whereas in the second intervention phase, the students created their own text maps for the passages. The study consisted of 20 text passages and was completed over a period of 28 days. Dependent measures included a 10- to 20-item production fill-in-the-blank comprehension test to assess the effectiveness of the intervention. Results indicated that both the teacher and student-generated text maps were effective in improving comprehension scores for all four students with EBD. Limitations of the study; implications for secondary classroom teachers, both general and special education; and future research questions are discussed.
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