I have to attend a workshop on teaching reading in the content areas. Is it really the job of a secondary science teacher to teach students how to read?
—Sofia, Visalia, California
Short answer—Yes, it is the job of science teachers to help their students learn how to read science materials.
I once worked on a project that involved reading in the primary grades. I was surprised much of the instruction took place with stories and most of the books in the classroom libraries were fiction as students learn to read. However, in the upper elementary and secondary grades, students read to learn. They are expected to comprehend and learn from nonfiction or informative text (as in textbooks, websites, and other publications). These materials have a different structure and different kinds of illustrations than fictional text. I wonder if many secondary students’ reading “problems” are, in reality, a lack of guidance and experience in interacting with informational text.
Unlike what students might see in a reading or English class, science resources are not usually written in a story-telling style or in chronological sequence. Science text often starts with a main concept and then provides descriptions or supporting details. Science text often uses headings, subheadings, abstracts, summaries, sidebars, footnotes, and graphics. Science text uses specialized vocabulary and may be written from an expert point of view. Students may not realize reading science text can be a slower process than reading a novel or story, and rereading a section is appropriate and even encouraged.
It’s frustrating for teachers when students don’t seem to comprehend what they’re reading. Two resources I’ve used and would highly recommend are Teaching Reading in the Content Areas: If Not Me, Then Who? by Rachel Billmyer and Mary Lee Barton and its companion Teaching Reading in Science (A Supplement to Teaching Reading in the Content Areas) by Barton and Deborah L. Jordan (both are available from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) bookstore . These books focus on reading for comprehension and include activities and graphic organizers to engage students before, during, and after reading content area materials.
Understanding science text also requires visual literacy. Think of the many nonlinguistic representations used in science: symbols on a weather map, the Periodic Table, chemical equations, Punnett squares, molecular diagrams, formulas, graphs, diagrams, and maps. It’s important for science teachers to help students understand how these graphics have meaning and are an integral part of the language of science.
Regardless of the grade level, an effective way to help students interact with text is by modeling with a “think-aloud,” making your thinking and reading processes visible (and audible) to students. For example, science textbooks have many graphics supporting the content, but many students do not always see the relationships between graphics and text. It’s been my experience that taking a little time to model how to make these connections may help students become more independent readers. Some teachers even accompany their students on a “guided tour” of each chapter of the textbook.
If a secondary student cannot decode words, there is certainly a need for intervention by reading specialists. But helping students develop strategies to comprehend text material is an important job of all content teachers. It’s unrealistic to expect our colleagues in the language arts department to teach students how to comprehend science text (and history text and mathematics text) when they have their own curriculum and skills to teach. Many of the reading skills students learn in their other classes can be transferred to science, but they may need some help from us to make the connections.
If you’d like to see how other science teachers address the issue of reading and science in their classes, go to the NSTA store and enter reading as a search term. You’ll get a list of recent NSTA journal articles with a wealth of ideas (journal articles are free to NSTA members). For more information on the “think-aloud” strategy, check out this school district resource and the TeacherVision website.

How does cartoonist Richard Thompson do such a splendid job of channeling the thoughts of preschoolers with their questions about the order of the world? In the world of Cul de Sac, Blisshaven Preschool reminds me of Every School where the goals of (us) teachers seem mysterious to children and often not aligned with their own. In “real life” we may operate side-by-side, each with different aims, like the parallel play often seen in two-year-olds. We have best intentions, but sometimes send children home with a gluey blob and an incomplete understanding.
The thoughts of the children of Blisshaven sound true to what I hear in the classroom:
Alice: “stactic elastricity.” She remarks that helium balloons would have taken her classmate halfway to the moon. And says of her summer, “I slouched in front of the TV for days and my eyes bugged our so far my optic nerve is now two feet long.”
They notice things, like the cobwebs in the corner of the preschool bathroom, and shrubs.
“I live on Cu de Sac Circle, in that house with the shrub.” Probably every house has a shrub but Alice knowsher shrub—I imagine she’s picked the leaves off of it, scratched her hand on a branch, lost a toy in its depths, and saw a bird fly into it and never come out—so it seems remarkable and the other shrubs are insignificant because they aren’t central to her experience. She misinterprets her brother Petey’s comment about a tipped-over electronic snowman to be a prediction of snow.
Her classmates are just as (in)accurate at assigning meaning to natural events in ways that have a kind of logic: Dill with his theory of jungle gyms going dormant in the winter. These children may have some misconceptions about natural phenomena but they accurately skewer adult behavior: “Adults can be so grabby.”
If your newspaper does not carry Cul de Sac, visit Gocomics.com for your daily lesson in the world of the suburban family through the perceptive eyes of young children.
Peggy

As mentioned in NSTA Reports, the new year has been designated Year of Science 2009 The website has many suggestions for YoS events and ideas for building interest in science.
January’s theme is the Process and Nature of Science. But get ready for February – February 12 is the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth with events being planned around the world. So it’s fitting that the YoS theme for the month is Evolution.
The January 2009 edition of Scientific American (which you can read online) has an Evolution theme. And NSTA’s Evolution Toolkit is a comprehensive resource on the subject.
Several websites have been added to the SciLinks sites on Evolution: rEvolution, Evidence: How Do We Know What We Know?, Explorations Through Time, and The Missing Link
Although it’s not about science per se, the National Science Foundation has just published a resource entitled Math – What’s the Problem that you should look at yourself and share with your colleagues in mathematics. This special report incorporates video clips and other resources.

Finding a covering of the season’s first snow on their car, my 3-year-old neighbor helpfully suggested, “Use that tool, that small brush,” to her father. Was she recalling last winter? It is possible that she had seen the snow brush/scraper in recent months in the back of the car. But how did she know it was for the snow?
What kinds of scientific inquiry activities do you do with snow in your class?
Peggy

I have always loved science – earth and space sciences especially. Although I’ve had a variety of jobs, since I began home schooling, I’ve discovered I absolutely love teaching. I’m thinking about getting my bachelor’s degree in science education, perhaps at an online university. Do you believe this could be a worthwhile career change for me? Are science teachers still needed? Will I be able to support a family on a new teacher’s salary? I need advice.
–M.S., No City or State
Being a science teacher can be a rewarding and enjoyable experience, sharing your passion and interest in the subject with students. But there are some aspects of the job you may want to consider. You mentioned your own interest in the earth sciences, so I assume you’re thinking of teaching in a middle/junior high or high school setting. You may want to see if a nearby school will let you “shadow” a secondary science teacher for a day. You’ll see for yourself the dynamics of working with 25 adolescents in a classroom. Secondary teachers usually have 4-6 sections, which add up to working with 100-150 students each day. You’ll also see other parts of a teacher’s day, including supervision duties such as homeroom or hall duties. But a teacher’s day does not end at 3:00, as I’m sure you realize. Staff meetings, professional development sessions, and managing the laboratory all require time beyond the school day. Then there’s the teacher’s “homework” – grading lab reports and tests, planning lessons, revising lessons, keeping current on the content, and preparing other learning materials. I didn’t see the top of the desk in my home office for years!
You asked if science teachers are still needed. That’s hard to predict, without knowing your geographic location. Schools in urban and rural settings often recruit teachers actively, and schools with a lot of “baby boomer” teachers who are getting ready to retire may also have openings. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has an Occupational Outlook Handbook with job outlooks and projections. Having a certificate in more than one subject area (e.g., earth science, biology, math) or credentials in special education or ESL may make you a more attractive candidate. One thing is in your favor – I know of schools that look for “nontraditional” beginning teachers who bring a lot to the classroom in terms of life experiences and maturity. In places where there is a surplus of teachers, many teachers have to start out doing substitute work (per diem pay and no benefits).
In addition to schools, other types of institutions often hire educators: museums, nature centers, zoos, and state/national parks. I talked with a friend who works at a nearby nature center where I’m a volunteer. She loves her work but noted funding for her type of position is always an issue, and she cringes at every budget cut.
Speaking of funding, you asked if you could support a family on a new teacher’s salary. That certainly depends on the starting salary and your family’s needs and lifestyle. Most public schools offer benefit plans (health insurance, life insurance) and some may offer full or partial tuition reimbursement for future studies. The American Federation of Teachers has an online tool to look at salaries state-by-state and the Teacher Portal website has a table to compare beginning salaries in the 50 states Even within a state, the salaries can vary, but this would give you an estimate. Many schools have extra opportunities for teachers to supplement their salary: extracurricular activities, tutoring, evening adult education classes, or summer programs for students.
If you do decide to pursue teaching credentials, a major decision will be on a college or university. Before enrolling in any higher-education teacher program, I’d ask a lot of questions. Does your state accept the coursework and degree from the institution for a teaching certification? What accreditation does it have? What percent of graduates find teaching positions? What experience and background do the education professors and the science professors have?
The courses at online universities are certainly convenient and can be challenging and informative with a good instructor. I’d go a little further with my questions about the science courses. How will you gain experience in a real laboratory or out in the field? How will you get experience with the “tools of the trade” you probably don’t have at home (e.g., telescopes, weather stations, computer-based probes, digital balances, microscopes, SmartBoards) but you’ll be expected to teach with in a classroom lab? What kinds of scientific inquiry will you do, and how? What kind of training in lab safety is provided?
On a practical note, I also would ask any online university which local schools they have partnerships with for you to do your practicum (student teaching). Does the university have a supervisor who will visit you in the classroom regularly to provided feedback? How do the education methods courses enable you to address your state’s science standards and reach a diverse student population?
I realize I responded to most of your questions with more questions! You have a lot to think about, and you’re very smart to gather data from a variety of sources before making such a big decision. Going back to school sets a wonderful example for your children!

I’ve worked with several schools that are framing their curriculum and units of instruction around big ideas, key understandings, generative topics, or themes (the terminology depends on which model is being used). The rationale for using an overarching concept is that it helps to pull together a disjointed set of topics, provides a focus for instruction, and helps students see connections among concepts.
If you’re struggling to find a “big idea” in science, look no further than this month’s issue of Science Scope. for resources on the concept of Change. Think of how many science topics include changes: plant and animal life cycles, the seasons, acceleration, the rock cycle, climate change, weather, the night sky, motion, chemical and physical changes, reflection and refraction, evolution, and the list goes on (feel free to add more). If there’s a constant in science, it’s the idea of change (discuss that over a cup of coffee some time!).
If you enter the word “change” as a SciLinks keyword, you’ll see a list of topics. Among them are the ones highlighted in the journal:

• Changes in Climate
• Changes in Ecosystems
• Changes in the Earth’s Surface
• Changes of Properties in Matter
• Changes of State

Wikis, Moodles, blogs, Face Book, podcasts, Smart Boards – just look at the changes in technology applications and resources that are available to teachers and students to access and share information. Whether it’s a fact-to-face or online, professional development is changing, too, from one-shot “sit and git” presentations to more focused and intensive projects that are related to and embedded in actual practice.
The overemphasis that some are placing on standardized tests and changes in the economy that are forcing schools to make hard decisions illustrate that not every change is positive, of course. And there are those who lament that students aren’t the same as they used to be. I’ve heard this comment for a zillion years. I’d be curious to know when there was a time when students were not changing!