Improving student literacy through science teaching techniques: through analyzing real-world informational text

Abstract

The purpose of this action research project was to determine the impact of scientific reading on student overall literacy levels. Given low literacy levels in middle school age students in Colstrip Montana, this project began to assess to what extent does the implementation of case study reading in a science classroom impact student literacy rate. This project included benchmark data from state testing to assess levels prior to and post treatment in the classroom. Eighth grade students were broken into two groups for this project, one was the treatment group, and the other was the non-treatment group. Over the course of the school year, treatment group students in the general 8th grade science classroom increased their reading assignments to include scientific journals, case studies and current scientific events. Following each scientific reading, students would complete a Likert scale to determine their understanding level and engagement for each reading. Students also completed guided journaling assignments that were used to understand the impact that the scientific readings had on their comprehension. Prior to treatment there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups of students. Post treatment STAR scores were taken to assess overall literacy growth. This led to the conclusion that students in the treatment group increased slightly in the subsection of informational text reading of the STAR test. Students in the non-treatment group did not have this increase.