Teaching Fourth-Grade Students of Different Reading Abilities to Read Biological Illustrations and Integrate In-Text Inf
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Teaching Fourth-Grade Students of Different Reading Abilities to Read Biological Illustrations and Integrate In-Text Information: an Empirical Experiment Yu-Cin Jian 1 # Springer Nature B.V. 2018
Abstract Scientific texts are often multimodal, consisting of both text and illustrations. However, previous research indicates that young readers are poor at using text-and-illustration integration strategies and at in-depth processing of scientific illustration information. This study used an experimental paradigm to teach strategies of illustration reading and text-and-illustration integration to fourth-grade students. The study manipulated reading ability (high vs. low level) and teaching strategy (presence vs. absence of reading strategies instruction) as betweensubjects variables. Seventy-one participants completed a prior-knowledge test, read two illustrated biology texts, and answered comprehension questions. The results showed that the instructed groups outperformed the control groups on the overall reading test, and in the illustration memory and integration items. It was inspiring to discover that teaching fourthgrade students of both high and low reading ability levels to pay attention to scientific illustrations, process them in-depth, and consider the relationship between textual descriptions and detailed parts of illustrations benefited these young readers in reading comprehension and acquiring scientific knowledge. Keywords Scientific illustrations . Reading strategies instruction . Reading ability . Text-andillustration integration
Introduction Reading is one of the critical components of scientific literacy. From the perspective of knowledge inheritance, readers can acquire understanding of scientists’ findings from reading their written texts. Anderson (1999, p. 973) suggested that Breading and writing are the mechanisms through which scientists accomplish their tasks. Scientists create, share, and
* Yu-Cin Jian [email protected]
1
Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Taiwan Normal University, No.129, HePing East Road, Section 1, Taipei, Taiwan
Research in Science Education
negotiate the meanings of inscriptions—notes, reports, tables, graphs, drawings, diagrams.^ From the perspective of knowledge communication, newspapers, science magazines, and popular science books are primary sources of technical and scientific information for the general public (Jarman and McClune 2000). Therefore, science reading should play an important role in science education. However, traditionally, science teachers have had little concern for text, and reading has not been seen as an important part of science education (Wellington and Osborne 2001). Traditional science education does not cover literacy (that is, reading and writing), possibly at the risk that students will never fully grasp the point and significance of scientific knowledge (Norris and Phillips 2003). Science education worldwide is currently progressively addressing the above situation. In addition to hands-on science, whi
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