Where Literacy and Science Intersect

Abstract

To build literacy, young children need more than instruction in such fundamental skills as recognizing letters, decoding words, learning vocabulary words, and reading and discussing stories. They also need opportunities to use oral and written language to learn about the world and to communicate their ideas and observations. Although educators traditionally have not thought of science instruction as a setting for literacy learning, inquiry-based science instruction can provide a rich context in which to build language skills. Students are typically curious about the world around them and eager to talk, read, and write about what they are learning. Inquiry-based science, as we define it, involves students in using the tools of science to answer questions about real-world phenomena. This type of inquiry is a collective effort in which students compare their thinking with others' thinking, actively communicate with one another, and express their ideas through words and graphics. Inquiry science and literacy intersect when students use reading, writing, and oral language to address questions about science content (for example, why humans are able to see different colors, or how an object's rate of motion is related to its mass), and to build their capacity to engage in scientific reasoning (for example, how to collect data in a controlled way, or how to generate claims about a phenomenon on the basis of patterns in data).

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December 2006/January 2007
December 2006/January 2007 | Volume 64 | Number 4
Science in the Spotlight Pages 56-60
Where Literacy and Science
Intersect
Susanna Hapgood and Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar
Learning about the world and sharing one's own discoveries
can be powerful motivators for learning to read, write, and
speak effectively.
To build literacy, young children need more than instruction in
such fundamental skills as recognizing letters, decoding words, learning vocabulary words, and
reading and discussing stories. They also need opportunities to use oral and written language to
learn about the world and to communicate their ideas and observations.
Although educators traditionally have not thought of science instruction as a setting for literacy
learning, inquiry-based science instruction can provide a rich context in which to build language
skills. Students are typically curious about the world around them and eager to talk, read, and
write about what they are learning.
Inquiry-based science, as we define it, involves students in using the tools of science to answer
questions about real-world phenomena. This type of inquiry is a collective effort in which students
compare their thinking with others' thinking, actively communicate with one another, and express
their ideas through words and graphics. Inquiry science and literacy intersect when students use
reading, writing, and oral language to address questions about science content (for example, why
humans are able to see different colors, or how an object's rate of motion is related to its mass),
and to build their capacity to engage in scientific reasoning (for example, how to collect data in a
controlled way, or how to generate claims about a phenomenon on the basis of patterns in data).
Reading, Writing, and Oral Language
What kinds of literacy learning can educators promote in the context of inquiry-based science?
The following list is illustrative but not exhaustive.
Reading and Scientific Inquiry
People sometimes contrast reading with inquiry as though they are the antithesis of each other.
Teachers may believe that students should engage in inquiry by exploring questions through their
own activity and thinking rather than by turning to books for answers. But when combined with
hands-on activities as a way to explore scientific phenomena, rather than merely as a way to find
the correct answers, reading can be an important part of the inquiry process.
To promote this kind of science reading, we need to understand the importance of introducing
children, even very young children, to informational text. Recently, researchers have paid

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considerable attention to the dearth of informational texts in the reading diets of young children,
who are primarily exposed to narrative texts (Duke, 2000). With such impoverished reading diets,
children miss many opportunities that informational texts provide.
For example, informational texts use a wide range of text structures, such as cause/effect,
compare/contrast, problem/solution, listing, and a chronology of events. It is important that
students become familiar with these assorted text structures. As they do so, they increase their
own repertoire of writing strategies (Purcell-Gates & Duke, 2004).
In addition, informational texts typically communicate information about the world beyond the
child's home environment. Hence, these texts—particularly if we make them available at a range of
levels—can play an important role in leveling the playing field for students who have not had
access to enriching real-world experiences (Neuman & Celano, 2006). In particular, science texts
offer many opportunities to expand students' vocabulary, an important benefit because one of the
most robust findings regarding literacy is the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and
reading achievement (National Reading Panel, 2000).
Finally, reading informational texts can increase student engagement. Research has shown that
students' motivation and reading comprehension increase when the students are directed toward
content goals (such as learning science) rather than performance goals (such as getting a good
grade) (Grolnick & Ryan, 1987; Guthrie et al., 2006). Guthrie and colleagues' research on
Concept-Orientated Reading Instruction (2004) suggests that students who have both strategy
instruction and sustained opportunities to read interesting texts to learn about a particular theme
(for example, animal habitats) are more motivated to read and more strategic in their reading than
are students who receive strategy instruction alone. Vitale and Romance (in press) also report that
content-oriented instruction yields higher gains in reading comprehension than does
strategy-oriented instruction.
If students are to learn to approach informational text with an inquiry stance, teachers need to
consistently model how to read critically and question the ideas presented in the text. They need
to ask, “How did the author know that?” and comment, “I find this confusing. How can I find more
information to help me understand?”
Writing and Scientific Literacy
Students have many compelling occasions to use writing in the context of scientific inquiry. They
can record questions of interest, document how they have set up investigations, represent data
they have collected, and develop explanations for the phenomena they are investigating. Students
can also incorporate such graphic elements as drawings, tables, and graphs into their writing.
Perhaps the most frequent way that students experience writing in science classrooms is by
keeping notebooks. Notebook-writing activities, however, are often reduced to reports of
teacher-expected results (Shepardson & Britsch, 2001). To promote literacy, teachers need to
encourage more thoughtful uses of writing in science.
For example, the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) is a tool to help teachers and students use
writing to promote collaborative thinking and reasoning. This heuristic calls for students to (1)
identify the ideas and questions they bring to the study of a phenomenon, (2) record what they
do in the course of their inquiry, (3) record their observations, (4) identify their claims, (5) provide
supporting evidence for their claims, (6) read others' entries to compare their thinking, and (7)
reflect on how their ideas have changed.
Wallace, Hand, and Yang (2004) determined that 7th grade students who were instructed in the
use of the heuristic learned more about the content they were studying than did students who
did not learn this heuristic. Further, students who used textbooks in addition to the Science
Writing Heuristic learned the most content. Finally, students who experienced opportunities to

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write, guided by the heuristic, developed an understanding of the role of claims/evidence
relationships in scientific reasoning. Klentschy and Molina-De La Torre (2004) reported similar
findings from their work with K–8 students, many of whom were English language learners.
Oral Language and Scientific Literacy
Discussions about ideas found in informational trade books offer students opportunities to restate
ideas in their own words, expand on their initial understandings as they learn more about a topic,
notice how their thinking has changed over time, and make connections between the ideas found
in books and their own lives.
Varelas and Pappas (2006) have studied urban primary-grade classrooms serving high numbers
of Hispanic English language learners to explore how engaging young students in discussions
about science books can help the students develop scientific understandings and acquire the
language of science. In one of their studies, the teachers read aloud and discussed seven trade
books about the water cycle and states of matter. In these discussions, they provided
opportunities for the students to make connections between their home and school experiences as
well as among the various texts. The researchers observed that students began to note such
connections. For example, during snack time a student wondered aloud whether the juice would
evaporate if it were left on the table. On another occasion, a student noted that “when you leave
your milk for a long time in the refrigerator, it will become thick” (p. 219).
The read-aloud sessions were accompanied by opportunities for the students to engage in their
own hands-on investigations. This program of studies eventually resulted in positive changes.
Teachers became increasingly experienced in engaging students in the discussions and
increasingly comfortable making the students' ideas the anchor for the discussions. Over time,
students learned to use discussions to explore theories about how the world works, and they
began to appropriate the specific vocabulary they had come across in the readings to describe
scientific concepts. Other researchers (for example, Conant, Rosebery, Warren, &
Hudicourt-Barnes, 2001) have reported similar patterns in language use and language learning.
Models for Combining Literacy with Inquiry-Based Science
Here we describe the research on two instructional models that have been developed to integrate
science and literacy in the classroom.
Science IDEAS
Romance and Vitale have developed an integrated model called Science IDEAS, which replaces
traditional language arts instruction in upper elementary grades with a daily two-hour block that
combines instruction in science, reading, and writing. Using challenging content-area texts,
teachers integrate reading comprehension instruction and writing tasks that encourage students
to think deeply about the topics being studied. For example, in a unit called “Processes of Life,”
students conduct experiments to determine what factors increase the growth of bread mold or to
determine whether the color of light reaching plant seedlings affects their growth, and then write
about these experiments to describe what they have observed and learned. Students also read
trade books and basal textbook passages about such topics as classification or metamorphosis;
their teachers guide them in noticing text structure, learning new vocabulary, identifying main
ideas, asking questions, and making inferences.
Research on the model has found that Science IDEAS instruction resulted in significantly higher
levels of student achievement on nationally normed science tests, as well as in reading
comprehension. In addition, students in Science IDEAS classrooms displayed significantly more
positive attitudes toward both science and reading, as well as more confidence in their capacity to
learn science (Romance & Vitale, 2005). The Science IDEAS Web site (http://scienceideas.org)

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contains such resources as concept maps, writing prompts, discussion boards, lists of trade
books appropriate for specific topics, and planning checklists to help teachers tailor the model to
their districts' curriculum and their students' needs.
Guided Inquiry supporting Multiple Literacies (GIsML)
We have researched another integrated instructional approach to science and literacy that we call
Guided Inquiry supporting Multiple Literacies (GIsML). In this approach, K–6 elementary teachers
guide their students in sustained inquiry about specific topics, usually centering on physical
phenomena, using both firsthand investigations (during which students collect and analyze data
themselves) and secondhand investigations (during which the teacher and students read and ask
questions about specially written texts). This approach has significantly increased students'
science content knowledge and scientific reasoning at both the lower and upper elementary levels.
For example, during a program of study about the motion of balls down inclined planes, which took
place for 1–2 hours daily over 10 consecutive days, 2nd grade students read and discussed two
simulated scientist notebooks. The notebooks were designed to be read in a highly interactive
manner. They were written in the voice of fictional scientist Leslie Park, and they included her
research questions, diagrams of her investigative setups, data tables with the results of
investigations, and her reflections on patterns in the data she had collected and the claims she felt
she could make on the basis of those data. The students and their teacher approached reading
these texts as a type of investigation. They puzzled over how Leslie developed the questions she
asked, whether the methods she described were adequate, what patterns appeared in her data,
and how to interpret those data. The class also engaged in complementary firsthand
investigations about the motion of balls down inclined planes, collecting data themselves. Like
Leslie, they tried to find patterns and make claims about relationships—for example, how the mass
of a rolling object affects its momentum and how the starting height of an object is related to the
amount of time it takes that object to roll to the bottom of an incline.
Results of paper-and-pencil pretests and posttests indicated that the unit produced a significant
increase in the students' conceptual understandings about motion. In the students' writing, we
also found evidence of learning; by the end of the program of study, almost all of the students
were able to justify their claims with evidence and use data tables to organize their findings
(Hapgood, Magnusson, & Palincsar, 2004; Magnusson & Palincsar, 2005).
A Powerful Combination
The results of these programs of research suggest the following conclusions:
Because students generally find science engaging, inquiry-based science instruction is rife
with learning opportunities.
Inquiry-based science instruction encourages students to stretch their capacities to
express, digest, and critique ideas in written and oral forms.
Reading texts to explore science topics, combined with firsthand investigations and
discussions, can help students acquire reading strategies even better than direct
instruction in those strategies can.
Discussing ideas, along with reading and writing about them, is especially beneficial for
building students' vocabularies and their ability to use complex sentence structures.
Inquiry-based science instruction can give students a reason for communicating in
different genres and forms (for example, graphs, diagrams, tables, and prose). Knowing
how and when to use various ways of representing ideas is a fundamental literacy skill.
Taking an inquiry approach to informational texts helps students learn to question and be

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critical of texts rather than to always defer to the text or use texts simply for finding
answers.
Science instruction in the early grades provides an opportunity not only to build knowledge about
the physical world but also to learn about the basic literacy tools of science. Learning what others
have discovered about the world and sharing one's own discoveries can be powerful motivators for
learning to read, write, and speak effectively. In today's classroom environment of ever-increasing
demands, every instructional minute must count. Finding time for science instruction and literacy
instruction does not have to be an either/or proposition—in fact, the two subjects can be more
powerful when combined.
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Susanna Hapgood is Assistant Professor, Early Literacy, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Toledo, Ohio;
419-530-2139; susanna.hapgood@utoledo.edu. Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar is Jean and Charles Walgreen Professor of Reading
and Literacy and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, School of Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; 734-647-0622;
annemari@umich.edu.
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