Science Practice #3

Being able to read, interpret, and produce scientific and technical text are fundamental practices of science and engineering, as is the ability to communicate clearly and persuasively.  Appendix F helps paint a picture for teachers about the extent to which students should obtain, evaluate, and communicate information when doing science. 

This site explains the challenges of reading science texts and provides reading supports for students before, during, and after reading.

Table tents with sentence starters provide a scaffold for getting kids to talk about evidence. This resource provides two different table tents:  1) for getting kids to share their thinking and build on each other's ideas and 2) for helping students to clarify other students' thinking. These are "must have" resources when building a classroom culture where students think together and all ideas are valued.

Close reading means reading to uncover layers of meaning that lead to deep comprehension. This ASCD article from Educational Leadership sheds light on why teachers should model close reading strategies with students and how to aim for students to independently use close reading strategies as a mechanism for deeply understanding a text. 

Think-alouds have been described as "eavesdropping on someone's thinking." With this strategy, teachers verbalize aloud while reading a selection orally. Their verbalizations include describing things they're doing as they read to monitor their comprehension. The purpose of the think-aloud strategy is to model for students how skilled readers construct meaning from a text.

Educators can find a series of lessons from ReadWriteThink on supporting students' ability to determine the meaning of words within the context of reading.

This strategy guide provides robust examples of reading strategies within the sciences.

One way to integrate reading in science is through journals. In this short video, a physics teacher models how Ms. Banks scaffolds a lesson to support all students in reading the journal and develop vocabulary understanding. 

These reading strategies, compiled by Learning for Justice, seek to uphold the mission of the Southern Poverty Law Center: to be a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements and advance the human rights of all people.

This two-part video showcases science teacher Peter Hill as he thoughtfully leads his students through a complex scientific text on electricity, fostering a deeper understanding of the concepts. In collaboration with the school's ELL teacher, Hill structures his lesson to effectively support his students' learning needs.