Abstract: The experiment was conducted in the attempt to understand the deve-lopment of children's map reading abilities. 96 children aged from 6 to12 years were asked to match a room model with two maps which haddifferent abstract level symbols and were shown in different angles (0°or 180°) . Ss were asked individually to match the maps with the model.The results have shown that: 1) the children's map reading ability deve-lopment is a process in which children first react egocentrically, and thenthey start to use landmarks, and at last they depend on mental rotation; 2)the abstractness of maps can influence the map reading process only whenchildren's map reading abilities were relatively poor; 3) the rotations ofmaps have significant influnces on map-reading reaction.of young childrenEven 6-year-old children can use non-rotated map properly, but theycan't use rotated maps until 8 or older.

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