Science

The inquiry-based nature of the scientific process draws on students' abilities to successfully participate in hands-on experiments, observe phenomena, discuss findings, and draw conclusions. Literacy has a critical role to play in middle-grades science learning, even when the curriculum is inquiry-based and hands-on. Students read a variety of documents, e.g., textbooks, write-ups of experiments, articles, lab directions, case studies, scientific reports, and online documents, to construct the meaning of important scientific concepts. Science writing, e.g., documenting observations, recording data, making sense of data, and sharing knowledge, helps students process information and gives teachers a window into students' understanding of core concepts. However, at the same time, science classes also make demands that directly intersect with areas where some students exhibit the most difficulty-reading and writing technical material.

Teachers recognize that literacy problems can impede student progress and create barriers to understanding science content. To help teachers meaningfully integrate literacy strategies into their content area teaching, we list below a number of web sites that provide ideas and information about connecting science instruction with reading and/or writing.

Literacy Skills for the Science Classroom

The following sites feature information and strategies for helping students develop the reading and writing skills needed for success in the science classroom.

Sites That Matter

Resources for Science Literacy: Professional Development
The mission of Project 2061, a long-term initiative of the American Association for Advancement of Science, is to advance literacy in science, math, and technology through workshops for teachers, principals, curriculum and materials developers, policy makers, and others. There are also self-guided courses and trade book information for teachers. This site also includes a fabulous evaluation tool for comparing Benchmarks for Science Literacy with the benchmarks set by the National Council of the Social Studies, the Ntional Council of Teachers of mathematics, and the National Research Council.
www.project2061.org/publications/rsl/online

Science and Literacy, by Ellen Stone, National Energy Foundation
This brief article is posted on the Science Site from the Utah Office of Education. The author explains why the science curriculum ought to help students learn to read and write about science. She includes suggestions for how to integrate reading into a science program and lists strategies for helping students comprehend nonfiction.
www.usoe.k12.ut.us/curr/Science/ReadScience/
NEF%20Sci%20and%20Lit.html

Reading and Writing in the Science Classroom, by Dr. Patricia Bowers
This article from the Professional Development section of Houghton Mifflin's Science Discovery Works site emphasizes the connection between science and what the author calls "the communication skills of reading and writing." Focusing primarily on the upper and lower elementary grades, the author provides a chart that demonstrates how the process skills of science, reading, and writing are interrelated, and she includes suggestions for how to develop an integrated unit.
www.eduplace.com/science/profdev/articles/bowers.html

MCPS Science Instruction
This section of the Montgomery County Public Schools web site contains numerous ideas and strategies for integrating reading and writing with science instruction. Keep scrolling-there is a lot to see on this page.
www.mcps.k12.md.us/curriculum/science/instr/instr.htm

Learning Styles and Writing in Science
This report from England's Department for Education and Skills lists numerous strategies for integrating writing into the science curriculum. The strategies are organized into categories based on Howard Gardner's multiple intelligence theory: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal.
www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/midbins/keystage3/
Learning%20styles%20and%20writing%20in%20science.PDF

Use of Writing in Science Class
This web page from the University of Akron's K-12 Science Education site gives a concise rationale for including literacy instruction in the science class and gives some practical suggestions for how to do it.
agpa.uakron.edu/k12/best_practices/using_writing_resources.htm

Journals and Logs: Science, Conversation, and Writing
This article from Perspectives in Education and Deafness describes different types of logs and journals and includes ideas for how they can be used in the science classroom.
clerccenter.gallaudet.edu/Products/Perspectives/

Helping Students to Read Science Text Books, by Bradford L. Walker & Richard A. Huber
This brief paper written by two professors from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, suggests a number of alternatives to round robin reading that help students become better readers in general, and more specifically, comprehending readers of science texts and other scientific literature.
people.uncw.edu/huberr/Revised_Reading_Textbooks.doc

Improving Reading Skills in the Science Classroom
This section of Glencoe Online's Teaching Today web site addresses the importance of reading skills for learning science concepts. The site identifies three important issues: vocabulary, detailed concepts and relationships, and multi-step processes and cycles. A list of strategies appears under each of these headings. At the bottom of the main page there is a link to dozens of free teaching materials from Glencoe, such as graphic organizers and reading anticipation guides.
www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/subject/reading_skills.phtml

Reading in the Sciences
This section of the Beacon Learning Center's Just Read Now! web site, contains in-depth information about the role of reading in the science curriculum. Sections include: Shared Goals, Skills and Strategies at Work, Integration in the Classroom, What the Researchers are Saying, and Comparison of Skills.
www.justreadnow.com/content/science/index.htm