The focus in this article is on the usefulness of spatial sequencing as a tactic for interpreting a map and organizing our memory of it. This skill is useful whenever some condition varies in a systematic way with distance. When students are asked whether they see a pattern on a map of a topic like wildfires or terrorist activity, some students…

This is the first in a series of six articles about how spatial reasoning can help children "read" maps, graphs, and geographic texts. Since the late 1900s, neuroscientists and psychologists have used new brain-scanning and eye-tracking technologies to do a "lot" of research about visual perception and spatial thinking. One key…