Making Science Trade Book Choices for Elementary Classrooms (original) (raw)
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This article argues that teachers’ awareness of how disciplinary meanings are made is an important piece of the knowledge needed to be an effective English language teacher today. Noticing language can positively impact teachers’ content and language knowledge, and thus their ability to support primary, intermediate, and secondary students’ content and language learning. To illustrate this argument, I focus on informational science texts. First, I outline a framework for noticing language patterns in disciplinary texts. Then, I present some patterns important for informational reading and writing in the science classroom. Last, I describe some activities that can be used to engage students in noticing and using aspects of science literacy.
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The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a systematic analysis of elementary school science textbooks. Comparisons of content domains and vocabulary are presented for the Merrill (1982) and Silver-Burdette (1985) science programs, grades 1-5 as well as the fourth grade Holt (1980) and fifth grade McGraw-Hill (1974) texts. Analyses of how each publisher presents information, types of questions, and various text characteristics reveal striking differences between programs. Systematic comparisons of content domains between programs also reveal few instances of "inconsiderate" texts. The textbooks analyzed were selected because they are used in the three school districts participating in our longitudinal study. Results are
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The majority of middle school students have not been specifically taught strategies to read textbooks. My goals were: to determine whether learning a textbook reading strategy would improve the students' understanding of the content, to measure any shift in attitudes towards reading textbooks after being taught specific strategies, and to evaluate any effect that teaching these strategies might have on my teaching. Many of my middle school science students struggled to locate information within their textbook during coursework. This impacted their reading assignments, which were rarely read, and homework assignments, which had low scores. The Common Core Standards mandate that technical writing and reading of informational text be incorporated into science curriculum. Two textbook reading strategies, THIEVES (Manz, 2002) and PLAN (Radcliffe, Caverly, Hand, & Frank, 2008), have been used successfully with middle school students. Over the course of four units, teaching of the reading strategies was alternated with using no reading strategy. The quantitative data that were collected included; test scores, quiz scores, homework scores, and final class grades. The qualitative data that were collected included; student surveys before and after learning the reading strategies, student interviews, and my own journaling. This study's findings were that quiz and test scores remained relatively consistent throughout the investigation, but homework scores did show an improvement during the final unit that used the PLAN reading strategy. Final academic grades remained the same for some of the students, while most students' grades improved or declined. Survey results indicated that students shifted from extreme feelings about reading textbooks, i.e. that they either loved or hated reading them, to having more neutral feelings about reading textbooks. The majority of the students preferred the PLAN reading strategy because they felt that it made them more familiar with the content and that their final product in their science notebooks had value to them, as it aided them in studying for tests. I also preferred PLAN due to the ease of teaching the strategy, the writing component that is built into the reading strategy, and the creative final product from the students.
ARTICLES Readability, Logodiversity, and the Effectiveness of College Science Textbooks
2016
Abstract: Textbooks are required in most introductory college science courses, but students may not be benefitting from the textbooks as much as their instructors might hope. Word use in the textbooks may influence textbook effectiveness. I tested whether either the amount of technical vocabulary or the readability had a significant effect on students ’ ability to learn general biology concepts. I provided different versions of the same reading, then tested students on the content. On the topic with the lowest overall post-reading quiz scores, students who received readings with less technical vocabulary outperformed their peers (P = 0.03). Textbooks did not appear to be an important source of learning for students in this study; fewer than half the students reported that they were reading the assigned chapters near the start of the semester, and this number declined sharply. Students had difficulty correctly answering questions immediately after reading brief selections, indicating...
Explanation in science trade books recommended for use with elementary students
Science …, 2009
Given concerns with the low levels of explanation in science education classrooms, it has been suggested that text may supply a higher percentage of explanatory discourse than do classroom teachers. However, given that textbooks have been shown to differ little from teacher discourse in percentages of explanation, the present study sought to examine explanatory aspects of highly recommended trade books teachers might use in their science instruction. To that end, we examined a total of 43 trade books, 24 life science and 19 physical science, 7182 clauses in all, for the presence of explanation. We found significantly higher percentages (32.87) of explanatory clauses in physical science trade books than in life science (23.34) trade books. This trend was particularly pronounced in the physical science trade books targeted for the primary-grade audience. Our results suggest that trade books may represent an option for infusing more focus on explanation in the science classroom. However, we also caution that teacher background may limit the effectiveness of this larger presence of explanation.
Readability, Logodiversity, and the Effectiveness of College Science Textbooks
2014
Textbooks are required in most introductory college science courses, but students may not be benefitting from the textbooks as much as their instructors might hope. Word use in the textbooks may influence textbook effectiveness. I tested whether either the amount of technical vocabulary or the readability had a significant effect on students’ ability to learn general biology concepts. I provided different versions of the same reading, then tested students on the content. On the topic with the lowest overall post-reading quiz scores, students who received readings with less technical vocabulary outperformed their peers (P = 0.03). Textbooks did not appear to be an important source of learning for students in this study; fewer than half the students reported that they were reading the assigned chapters near the start of the semester, and this number declined sharply. Students had difficulty correctly answering questions immediately after reading brief selections, indicating a low leve...