Previous experimental studies have indicated that young people's text comprehension and summarisation skills can be improved by techniques based on text concept mapping (TCM). However, these studies have done little to elucidate a practical pedagogy that can make the techniques adoptable within the context of typical secondary school classrooms. This paper explains how a collaborative research approach has developed a new pedagogy, named TCM/4, for TCM, along with new technology that supports this pedagogy in effective ways. Case studies of the strategy indicate that pupils enjoyed their lessons and shared their teachers' views that it was helpful in comprehending texts.