The School Principal – Reading Informational/Science Texts
The strategies below are most promising to help students read and understand informational texts, particularly science texts. Informational/science texts continue to challenge many students. For one thing, the complexity level of the texts is often above the expected level for students at a particular grade. Recent science testing results for both elementary and middle school students confirm this challenge. To help ameliorate the situation, science reading processes are presented in a clustered flow in which one or more may be used in assisting students to gain control of challenging science texts.
Reading Process
This process is generic in helping students improve their understanding of any informational text, particularly science. It relies heavily on a teacher’s guided questioning of the material being addressed. A guided reading approach is designed to engage students in the text through specific questions that move from literal to analytical. It is designed to probe student understanding. However, identify and list key vocabulary associated with the text, spell it, pronounce each term or phrase, and define it.
Before Reading
Comprehension is improved by activating student’s prior knowledge of subject matter before they read. Ask students what they already know about a topic, priming them to build on that knowledge.
During Reading
Comprehension can also benefit from specific strategies used during reading. The trick is to get students to read reflectively and monitor their own comprehension. Here are strategies to engage students:
- Direct Explanation
The teacher explains to students why the strategy helps comprehension and when to apply the strategy, such as text structures to acknowledge the way text is shaped in the reading: chronological order, cause-and-effect, compare-and-contrast, problem-solution, description, and sequence.
Metacognition, thinking about thinking, gives readers control over their reading which include:
- Identify where a difficulty occurs
- Identify what the difficulty is
- Restate the difficult sentence or passage in their own words
- Look back through the text
- Look forward in the text for information that might help to resolve the difficulty
- Modeling
The teacher models, or demonstrates, how to apply the strategy, usually by “thinking aloud” while reading the text that students are using. - Guided Practice
The teacher guides and assists students as they learn how and when to apply the strategy. - Application
The teacher helps students practice the strategy until they can apply it independently.
After Reading
Understanding doesn’t stop when students reach the end of a text. When students summarize and organize the salient content of a text after reading it, their comprehension and recall improves.
In the case of addressing science test items, it is important to know that the items are generated from a text and require an ability to locate support information and apply what has been read.
Dr. Bruce H. Crowder is a senior researcher for Educational Vistas, Inc. His work is primarily focused on creating pathways for deeper learning for all students through student performance and a dynamic curriculum replete with strategic teaching. Dr. Crowder may be reached at bcrowder@edvistas.com
Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) Assessments
for NYS School Districts
Degrees of Reading Power® (DRP) assessments are easily implemented measures of literacy skills, meant to determine a student’s comprehension of text passages. They calculate a student’s overall ability to comprehend and critically understand writing.
