Journeys into inquiry‐based elementary science: Literacy practices, questioning, and empirical study

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Teaching literacy in inquiry-based science-teaching settings has recently become a focus of research in science education. Because professional scientists' uses of reading, writing, and speaking are foundational to their work, as well as to nonscientists' comprehension of it , it follows that literacy practices should also be central to science teaching. Science as a vehicle through which to develop literacy skills is an attractive alternative that some teachers choose in order to include science in their curriculum. In this paper, we present descriptions of three elementary teachers' efforts to teach literacy practices through science. Our descriptions, through which we illustrate a range of ways in which teachers link science and literacy instruction, are grounded in these teachers' accounts and our observations of their teaching. We end with a comparison of these teachers' approaches, and draw from this analysis considerations for implementing literacy instruction in elementary science education.

Challenges and Support When Teaching Science Through an Integrated Inquiry and Literacy Approach

“…This was also the case for reading and writing activities. In line with the study by Howes et al (2009), findings such as these point to the fact that teacher knowledge about literacy teaching in science is key to supporting students in engaging with science texts in more authentic ways.…”

“…own preferences and ideas about scientific inquiry (Windschitl, 2004), but also that the role of literacy in integrated science-literacy instruction differs, even with teachers whom hold seemingly similar views about inquiry (Howes et al, 2009). In our study, the teachers were afforded detailed teacher guides, but there were still significant differences when the teacher guides were compared with the actual implementation.…”

Building a web in science instruction: using multiple resources in a Swedish multilingual middle school class

“…The lingering issue is not that reading and writing activities ought to be a part of the science class ( ; degaard et al. 2014) or a fear that literacy activities may prevail over science learning (Howes, Lim, and Campos 2009).…”

“…This is further supported by Jakobson and Axelsson (2012) who show how young multilingual students (Swedish grade 2) are mainly involved in hands-on activities while reading and writing are overlooked. On the contrary, Howes, Lim, and Campos (2009) claim that literacy activities may prevail over science learning. Furthermore, the various resources used in school science are specialised, which may imply that neither language nor other resources may be familiar to students.…”

The Relationship between Elementary Students’ Problem Solving and Inquiry Learning Skills

“…According to Lee, Hart, Cuevas and Enders (2004), scientific inquiry includes high end thinking skills or research of natural phenomena via experiments. Therefore inquiry based learning becomes a focus point of research on science education (Howes, Lim, & Campos, 2009). According to Chin and Chia (2006), inquiry based learning aims for students to comprehend scientific content conceptually, develop related process skills and comprehend the nature of science.…”