An Analysis of Literacy-related Messages in Elementary Science Methods Textbooks

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Cheryl Morris and Dr. Roni Jo Draper, Teacher Education

Adults in America get most of their information from mass media (Norris & Phillips, 2003). These sources keep them informed about politics, natural disasters, advances in science, etc. However, adults need to be able to understand these sources to form opinions and take an active role in society. Many people do not fully understand what they read because they did not receive enough training and experience with expository text in school. Understanding does not come naturally and needs specific instruction. Providing more instruction for literacy in content area classes (like science) will better prepare students to enter a world in which literacy is vital.

Typically instruction for reading and writing in elementary school occurs during language arts time. However, written communication is central to science itself (Norris & Phillips, 2003) and instruction in scientific writing is needed. Indeed, students need to learn how to read and write about science while learning science. Currently, elementary teachers are prepared to teach students to read as part of general literacy instruction. Despite the recommendations from literacy educators, elementary teachers may not be prepared to help children learn to read and write expository texts (Draper et al., 2005). Similarly, science educators have recommended that literacy instruction be part of science instruction (Norris & Phillips, 2003).

The purpose of this study was to examine the textbooks written to prepare elementary teachers to teach science and to determine the messages these textbooks include about providing literacy instruction as a part of science instruction. I performed a qualitative content analysis on the top three best-selling elementary science methods textbooks. The relative sales ranking of the text books was determined by sales rates on Amazon.com, in February 2006. The three books I used were: Martin’s (2006) Elementary science methods: A constructivist approach Carin, Bass, and Contant’s (2005) Teaching science as inquiry, and Koch’s (2005) Science stories: science methods for elementary and middle school teachers.

We began the analysis by reading portions of the texts independently to sort the messages according to the following categories that represented broad meanings: (a) reading to learn, (b) learning to read, (c) selecting texts, (d) writing to learn, (e) learning to write, (f) writing to assess, (g) talking to learn, (h) learning to talk, and (i) talking to assess. These categories were based on Draper’s (2002) categories. To expand the definition of literacy to include oral communication, talking was also included. These general categories were then subdivided into specific methods. For example, in the writing to learn category we included sub-categories like writing poems and class newspapers, keeping science journals, and making graphs and data tables.

The sub-categories were teaching methods, categorized according to the kind of information they provided. If a method was just suggested with no further detail, it was categorized as “mentioned.” Some methods included reasoning for the activity which went in the category of “rationale.” Others gave an example of the method or a description of how to use it while teaching categorized as “example” and “description,” respectively.

We found evidence of each category in all of the books. Mostly this was mentioning, without teaching how to use the method and how to integrate science and literacy instruction. Reading to learn methods were widely used. Martin (2006) devoted an entire chapter to reading and writing and all of the authors spoke favorably about using reading with learning. However, each of the authors included statements that could be interpreted as a less-than-favorable position toward reading in science classrooms. The authors also did not include many methods of teaching children how to read science texts only that it could be a good teaching method.

All of the authors agreed that writing provides a good way to support children’s growth in science learning and included ways of incorporating writing into science instruction. A popular method suggested was keeping a science journal. Writing to assess was discussed with examples of methods that teachers could use such as essays, journals, sketches, or concept maps. The rationale that writing shows what students are thinking was presented. However, none of the authors even suggested that elementary teachers could teach their students how to write science reports. Indeed, the authors either believed that the students would have the requisite skills to complete the writing activities suggested to support or assess student thinking and learning or that merely having the opportunity to engage in these activities would strengthen the skills, thus, eliminating the need for literacy instruction.

All of the authors acknowledged that students should have opportunities to talk to learn science. They said talking in science classrooms is similar to what scientists do as a part of doing science. Talking to learn in the classroom can be used through small group discussions. The authors gave examples of talking to assess including interviews and oral presentations. Carin et al. mentions that learning to talk was essential, but made no suggestion of how to teach communication skills.

This project will be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Science Teacher Educators, January 3-7, 2007. We also wrote a paper summarizing the results which will be submitted to the Journal of Science Teacher Education for publication.

References

  • Carin, A. A., Bass, J. E., & Contant, T. L. (2005). Teaching science as inquiry (10th ed.). Upper Saddle river, NJ: Pearson.
  • Draper, R. J. (2002). Every teacher a literacy teacher? An analysis of the literacy-related messages in secondary methods textbooks. Journal of Literacy Research, 34 (3), 357-384.
  • Draper, R. J., Smith, L. K., Hall, K. M., & Siebert, D. (2005). What’s more important–literacy or content? Confronting the literacy-content dualism. Action in Teacher Education, 27(3), 12-21.
  • Koch, J. (2005). Science stories: Science methods for elementary and middle school teachers (3rd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
  • Martin, D. J. (2006). Elementary science methods: A constructivist approach (4th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.
  • Norris, S. P. & Phillips, L. M. (2003). How literacy in its fundamental sense is central to scientific literacy. Science Education, 87(2), 224-240.