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NASA encourages you to visit NASA Kids' Club and use its games and activities to inspire the next generation.

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Students Use Informational Text as a Basis for Inquiry

Scientists and engineers don't just mix solutions, look through a microscope, or build a robot. They have to read texts to gather and interpret information. Scientists learn about and come to understand the natural world through text as well as firsthand investigations (Cervetti et al., 2006). Reading to learn doesn't stop after absorbing what a text says. Scientists read to learn by digging deeper. They use informational text as a basis for inquiry.

Students need opportunities to read as scientists do at the point of use in their learning. For example, if students are learning about Earth's changes, using a text about the Grand Canyon serves two purposes. First, the text gives access to something that can't be directly observed in the classroom. Second, the text might tell the reader the facts of how deep the canyon is or what types of rock make up its layers, but equally important is what's not told that leads to inquiry. What did the Grand Canyon look like in the past? What lives or lived there? How do we know? All students, especially ones who want to be scientists someday, need exposure to informational text to practice reading with a purpose.

Teachers Teach More Science alongside the ELA Standards

A 2018 survey of US elementary school teachers reports that teachers spend 18-27 minutes per day teaching science but nearly 90 minutes teaching ELA (Banilower et al., 2018). Plus, not everyone teaches science every day (see table below). This is precisely why the use of informational text is so critical for both teachers and students. Wendy Binder, from the National Science Teaching Association, interviewed a teacher from New Jersey who said, "I realized I had two choices: work faster or begin teaching more than one subject at a time."

Bringing science into the ELA classroom through informational text related to the content in science standards is a way to address the imbalance. For example, in a current science unit, students are learning about similarities and differences among birds. They have bird-watched outside. They have observed and named types of birds they typically see around their school or homes. By using a science curriculum with integrated informational text, the teacher can also introduce students to a type of bird they won't find nearby. Through informational text, students can discover key ideas and details, such as the species of the bird and what makes it different. They can also explore craft and structure of text by grasping how the text is grouped by sections with headings, how captions give information about images, and the significance of bold print. Using informational text works best when it fits seamlessly into the content students have learned.

Science taps into students' natural curiosity and energy, and ELA tasks, including reading complex text, are not so daunting when they are a path to understanding something students really want to know (Tyler et al., 2017).

Science Teaches New Language to All Students

Teachers often see a wide range of reading abilities among their students-from those who read far beyond grade expectation to those who can't read English. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nearly 10 percent of students in the US public school population are still in the process of acquiring English language proficiency ( McFarland et al., 2019). Teachers need a way to level the playing field. This is why it is important that language and literacy instruction be tied to a content area such as science so that students can simultaneously develop disciplinary understanding and language and literacy skills (Llosa, Kieffer, and Lee, 2016).

REFERENCES

Banilower, E. R., P. S. Smith, K. A. Malzahn, C. L. Plumley, E. M. Gordon, and M. L. Hayes. 2018. Report of the 2018 NSSME+. Chapel Hill, NC: Horizon Research, Inc.

Binder, W. 2006. "Treasures from Home." In Linking Science & Literacy in the K-8 Classroom, edited by Rowena Douglas, Michael P. Klentschy, and Karen Worth. Arlington, VA: National Science Teachers Association: 207-220.

Cervetti, G. N., P. D. Pearson, M. A. Bravo, and J. Barber. 2006. "Reading and Writing in the Service of Inquiry-Based Science." In Linking Science & Literacy in the K-8 Classroom, edited by Rowena Douglas, Michael P. Klentschy, and Karen Worth. Arlington, VA: National Science Teachers Association: 221-224.

Llosa, L., M. J. Kieffer, and O. Lee. 2016. "How Can Educational Systems Better Serve English Learners? Integrate Language and Content Instruction, Attend to Individual Needs Beyond Classification, and Measure Progress Meaningfully." Technical report. New York: NYU Steinhardt.

McFarland, J., B. Hussar, J. Zhang, X. Wang, K. Wang, S. Hein, M. Diliberti, E. Forrest Cataldi, F. Bullock Mann, and A. Barmer. 2019. The Condition of Education 2019 (NCES 2019-144). US Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved August 28, 2019 from https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo. asp?pubid=2019144

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, & Council of Chief State School Officers. 2010. Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects: Appendix A. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/assets/ Appendix_A.pdf

Tyler, B., T. Britton, A. Iveland, K. Nguyen, J. Hipps, and S. Schneider. 2017. "The Synergy of Science and English Language Arts: Means and Mutual Benefits of Integration." Evaluation report #2. San Francisco, CA: WestEd.

How Smithsonian Science for the Classroom Curriculum Supports Integrated Informational Text

The Common Core State Standards for reading require more than the skill of reading alone. They require students to comprehend texts of steadily increasing complexity, which is why the Smithsonian Science Education Center integrated a literacy series called Smithsonian Science Stories into its new curriculum series, Smithsonian Science for the Classroom. The literacy series is designed to give all students access to that staircase of complexity necessary to prepare them for college and careers while providing support for students without English language proficiency. Those supports include the availability of Spanish translated text, differentiated text that provides the same level of information and the same text features (i.e., vocabulary, headings, images, and captions) but at a reduced complexity score, and digital versions of the literacy series that are text-to-speech compatible.

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Read Like a Scientist: How to Integrate Science with English Language Arts Standards through Informational Text

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Students Use Informational Text as a Basis for Inquiry Scientists and engineers don't just mix solutions, look through a microscope, or build a robot. They have to read texts to gather and interpret information. Scientists learn about and come to understand the natural world through text as well as firsthand investigations (Cervetti et al., 2006).

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WJCC School Health Initiative Program (SHIP)