Researching to Learn

When teaching science, it is important to consider the other content areas can or need to be included. It is often important to properly and effectively include reading into science, as explained in "Infusing Reading into Science Learning" by Zmach, Sanders, Drake Patrick, Dedeoglu, Charbonnet, Henkel, Fang, Leonard Lamme, Pringle (2006). By incorporating literature properly within a science curriculum, a student's scientific skills as well as their reading skills could greatly benefit. In the example opening the article, the literature read by the class on different types of waves lead to discussion and questions from the students. The discussion created not only lends itself to questions being formed by students, but can act as a for of informal assessment in that the teacher is able to gather information about what the class does and does not understand about what was read in their scientific literature. Additionally, the questions posed during discussion or because of the literature read creates an environment for inquiry, which encourages student curiosity and investment in their own learning. Additionally, by infusing scientific literature, students learn more scientific language by seeing it in use. In my own classroom, I would be sure to include this kind of scientific reading within my units. There are always ways to link science and reading, and in doing so I know my students would become more engaged in what we are learning about.