Click on the Text icon above and select the Michael Brown extract ‘Map symbols and plan view’. This provides a review of map work research.
In your online Notebook, make some notes of the key points raised, in particular in relation to location, direction and scale.
How does this relate to your current practice with your pupils?
Should you reconsider aspects of that practice?
Note down some possible implications.
Using maps and aerial photographs
‘Studies of childrens’ mapwork are beginning to show how the young child learns to perceive contours but to imagine slope, and then to put slopes together mentally to visualize the terrain.’
(Sandford, 1979, p. 298)
Forms and functions of maps
Maps come in many forms and have many functions. The most common identified are:
displaying a route;
finding a place;
showing what an area looks like;
as an information source.
Vertical aerial photography provides a directly overhead view, showing the situation as it is when the photograph is taken. Both maps and aerial photographs can be used together to help children gain an understanding of their own environment.
As well as being a skill, the making and reading of maps is also a medium of communication for children.
Most map-related activities with young children begin with encouraging a ready knowledge of directional words such as forward, back, right, left and later drawing a signpost map which shows the position of their desk in relation to other items in the room and to external places outside the school. There is much further reading available on this theme (e.g. Catling, 1992a, b and c).
Look at Activity 3 which considers some of the research in this area.
Unit Resources
