Why should the nation’s schools integrate science and literacy? “Science provides an authentic and engaging context for literacy learning,” explained P. David Pearson, dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, “and literacy learning can support students in learning science.” On July 12, Pearson was among the distinguished speakers who addressed educators attending Literacy Institute 2006: Building Content Literacy Today, a two-day event sponsored by National Geographic School Publishing and Michigan State University’s Literacy Achievement Research Center.
Pearson is co-principal investigator (with Lawrence Hall of Science Associate Director Jacqueline Barber) for Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading™, a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded curriculum development and research project that has created a model of science/literacy integration. Collaborating on the project are staff from UC-Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science and its Graduate School of Education. The team is creating curriculum units that provide students in grades 2–5 with learning opportunities in reading and writing embedded in inquiry-based science activities.
Pearson noted that combining science and literacy “may strengthen the standing of science in the school day.” Integration, he added, “may be our only hope in a policy context with a crowded curriculum and a distorted sense of curricular values.”
“Literacy has become the curricular bully—but it can become the curricular buddy,” Pearson quipped. One reason why combining science and literacy works for students, he explained, is because “facts have to mean something.” If facts are attached to a concept, students are more likely to remember them. “Reading and writing are better when they are tools, not goals,” he asserted.
Integrating science and literacy involves learning through what he calls “firsthand investigations,” or hands-on science activities, along with “secondhand” or text investigations. This approach requires learning through multiple modalities: doing, talking, reading, and writing. Calling himself a “reading person,” Pearson noted that “doing” is equally important.
In an example of integration, he described how students could investigate the preferred environments and food of snails, then read a “plausible narrative” in which other students conduct similar investigations. The students would then compare results and account for discrepancies. This type of learning, he explained, mirrors what scientists do when they consult previous studies and literature related to their work, then “build on” that knowledge with their own data and reports.
“Text can model the nature of science,” said Pearson. Students can read biographical sketches of scientists at work, for example. And since scientists must excel at recording data, students headed for careers in the field need to learn to write as scientists.
Pearson pointed out that literacy and science share many common cognitive activities, such as summarizing, posing questions, communicating findings, and drawing inferences and conclusions. He said that because of these synergies between open-ended science activities and reading, the same rubrics can be used to evaluate students’ abilities in both domains. “Literacy is more verbal, and science more experiential, but each can be both.”
Part of the science/literacy interface involves teaching students to use the language of science. Pearson advises teachers not to avoid technical language, but also not to focus too much on teaching definitions of words: “Definitions don’t make it…If you’re teaching the science well, teaching the words will happen naturally.” He stressed the importance of providing many contexts for students to encounter scientific language so that they can learn to use it and own it. Scientific terms can be embedded in a hands-on activity, he added.
Seeds and Roots, as Pearson refers to his project, has identified a set of “high-utility” core science words for grades K–5 that, together with firsthand experiences, help build “a rich conceptual network.” The project also promotes the deliberate use of specialized science terms: “I observed” instead of “I saw,” or using the word “habitat” instead of “home.” But he noted that in addition to Seeds and Roots’ nonfiction student readers, many other trade books make similar connections between science and literacy. “We’re simply replicating what’s already available.”
Seeds and Roots is producing a body of research for the field. The project team has conducted a national, quasi-experimental research study involving 87 classrooms in 21 states and has engaged in six separate research studies on science/literacy integration. The national study involved classes that used Seeds and Roots readers with inquiry science activities; classes that used science units without the Seeds and Roots readers; classes that used only the readers with no science activities; and classes that didn’t use either. The study showed that students who used the Seeds and Roots unit on Terrarium Investigations (science activities combined with the reading materials) “gained significantly more on all of the measures than all of the other groups, which did not typically differ from one another.”
When differences appeared between the science-only group and the text-only group, however, the text-only group fared better—but Pearson was quick to add that his team plans future studies to ascertain whether this result happened because of the approaches or the measures. The Seeds and Roots team are refining their science and literacy assessments so they can obtain more precise data.
At the Seeds and Roots website, educators will find numerous papers and presentations on the science/literacy interface, as well as PowerPoint files for all of the presentations from the project’s first annual research colloquium, held in August 2005. Pearson’s presentation at Literacy Institute 2006 will also appear online there. In addition, he cited the NSTA Press book Linking Science and Literacy in the K–8 Classroom as a useful resource.
Pearson also referenced other existing research on science/literacy integration. He mentioned two studies conducted in 1992 and 2001 by NSTA members Nancy Romance, professor of science education at Florida Atlantic University, and Michael Vitale, associate professor in the Department of Foundations, Research, and Reading at East Carolina University.
Since 1989, Romance and Vitale have served as principal and co-principal investigator, respectively, for the Science IDEAS Project, which is now a multiyear initiative funded by NSF and the Interagency Educational Research Initiative in Florida’s Broward and Palm Beach County schools from 2002 through 2007. During a breakout session at Literacy Institute 2006, Romance discussed the project and led the audience through a series of reading and hands-on science activities to illustrate how Science IDEAS works.
Science IDEAS, a daily two-hour integrated instructional model, provides opportunities for students to do hands-on science activities; read, write, and journal about science; access their prior knowledge and build upon it; and construct propositional concept maps, which "allow both students and teachers to organize their knowledge; build meaningful relationships; and in the process, increase conceptual understanding in science." Romance provided examples of both students’ and teachers’ concept maps and encouraged teachers to visit the Science IDEAS website, which contains a library of concept maps.
Romance also pointed to “Evidence Helps the KWL Get a KLEW,” an article from the February 2006 issue of Science and Children. In it, authors Kimber Hershberger, Carla Zembal-Saul, and Mary L. Starr say that “many teachers use Know-Want-Learn (KWL) charts and variations of them when teaching science to access students’ prior knowledge on a particular topic and help students organize what they are learning during a science lesson or unit. We…developed another variation—the Know-Learning-Evidence-Wonder (KLEW) chart—to add to the list.” NSTA members can access this article here.
Romance and Vitale’s studies showed that standard and at-risk students participating in Science IDEAS made significant gains in both reading comprehension and science on nationally normed tests. The Science IDEAS website offers links to articles about their research.