Primary Students & Informational Texts

Hallie Kay Yopp and Ruth Helen Yopp

Anyone who has spent time looking at science books with young children has no doubt experienced the endless questions that the information and visuals in the books can stimulate. Can snakes climb trees? How do frogs hide from predators? Why do volcanoes erupt? Books prompt questions, which can lead to further reading about and investigation of science topics.

Whether from a textbook or a nonfiction trade book, informational text can be the fuel that sparks curiosity about and interest in science, thus contributing to the development of scientific attitudes. As students read, they engage in processes common to science and literacy, such as predicting, generating questions, summarizing understandings, and using data to draw conclusions.

In this article, we share three strategies that teachers can use to promote young children’s successful interactions with informational science texts. In addition to supporting students’ science learning and their developing reading abilities, these strategies are useful for assessing students’ science knowledge.

Before Reading:
Preview-Predict-Confirm

Preview-Predict-Confirm (PPC) activates and builds students’ background knowledge and relevant vocabulary prior to reading. The text used with the PPC strategy should be rich with pictures and other visuals. To begin, the teacher asks students to view all or some of the pages of a science book or section of a science textbook, either as she holds the book so it is visible to all students or as they turn the pages of their own copies. Then, students close the books and predict as many words as they can that the author might have used in the text. If the class is reading the book Monarch Butterfly (Gibbons 1989), the teacher might model this prediction: “I think the author probably used the word caterpillar in this book because I saw several pictures of caterpillars and because I know that caterpillars turn into butterflies.”

After the teacher asks for one or two predictions from the class, she organizes students into groups of three to five, gives each group a stack of index cards, and asks the students to record their word predictions on the cards, one word per card. The teacher provides ample time for generating and recording words (usually 10 to 15 minutes) and then asks the students to sort their words into meaning-based groups. She says, “Look at your words. Some of the words probably go together. They are related to one another or are related to the same idea. Put those words together in a stack. Find other words that go together and put them in a different stack.”

One group of students puts the words egg, chrysalis, and butterfly into one stack and the words wings, head, feelers, body, and legs into another. After the students have sorted their words, the teacher asks them to label each stack of words. In the example above, the group labels the first stack of words “life cycle” and the second stack “parts of a butterfly.” Next, groups share their labels aloud.

Each group next identifies one word they think every group recorded, a word they think may be unique to their group, and a word that interests them. These words are shared one at a time and discussed by the class. For example, one group shares “travel” as its interesting word. The teacher says, “How do you think that word might be used by the author, and why is it interesting to you?” The group responds, “We saw a map with arrows on it in the book. We think the author might be telling about butterflies flying long distances, and we wonder how far and how fast butterflies travel.” The teacher responds, “Ah! When we read, we’ll find out whether the author discusses that information!”

Finally, students read or listen to the selected text. As the text is read, the teacher and students note whether and how words are used in the book. After reading, they analyze their word choices and are provided the opportunity to add to their cards and to reorganize the words if they choose.

Instructional benefits of this strategy are numerous. Students explain concepts to each other and receive support recalling and learning scientific terms: What do you call it when animals travel long distances? What is the word for when an animal changes form, like from a caterpillar to a butterfly? PPC engages students in observing, predicting, hypothesizing, questioning, and explaining—processes common to science and literacy. It creates a sense of anticipation and helps students set purposes for reading, motivating them to explore the topic. It engages students in concept formation through listing, grouping, and labeling their words (Taba 1967).

Additionally, PPC provides teachers with an opportunity to informally assess their students’ science understandings and to determine the match between the language and content of the text and the language and background knowledge of the students. Figure 1 shares a classroom scenario in which the teacher uses PPC for assessment.

While Reading:
Ten Important Words

Ten Important Words is a during-reading strategy that actively engages students with a text and with peers. In this strategy, students think about the ideas and language in the text and then individually or in pairs identify 10 key words, build a class graph of the words, analyze their choices, and summarize the content of the selection.

To begin, the teacher models the selection of several words, offering students a window on his reasoning by thinking aloud. For example, the teacher might read aloud the first page of a textbook selection about Earth’s atmosphere. As he reads aloud he says, “Oh! This paragraph is mostly about gravity, so I’ll record that word for now, although I might change my mind later. One important thing the authors say about gravity is that it holds air particles around the Earth, so I think I’ll write particles on another note.” The teacher continues, “The authors also use the words magnet, increase, breathing, and many others, but they don’t seem as important to me right now. I might change my mind as I read more, though.” The teacher emphasizes to the students that their job is to select words that capture the big ideas in the text and give the most information about the topic. The students each record their 10 words on individual self-adhesive notes as they read.

Next, a few students at a time post their words on a large piece of butcher paper tacked to a wall. Like words are placed in the same column, and different words start a new column. The teacher models how to build the graph by posting a word, such as gases, along the bottom of the paper (the x axis) and a different word next to gases. He asks, “Did anyone select gases, too?” If any of the students did select that word, he invites two or three of them to place their self-adhesive notes above his on the butcher paper. He then asks, “What about my second word, energy? Did anyone select that word?” He then invites a couple of students to post their notes above his on the chart. Finally, he asks for an example of a different word. One of the students shares invisible. He asks the class where they think that word should be placed on the graph. They conclude that the word should begin a new column. After this modeling, several students at a time are invited up to the graph to post their words.

When all students have posted their words, the class examines the resulting graph, first identifying words that were selected by many of the students. The teacher asks students to talk about why they think so many students chose these words, how the words relate to the topic of the book, and how the words are used in the book. He comments, “Notice how many students selected the word atmosphere. Why is that?” Many of his students quickly exclaim, “That’s what the whole section is about!” and “That’s what we were reading about!” He notes that quite a few students also selected the word air and asks why. One student says, “The atmosphere is made up of air.” Others agree. One says, “Yeah. The author said air is a lot of invisible gases mixed together.”

Then, the teacher directs the students’ attention to less frequently selected words, asking the same questions. The teacher notes that a single student contributed the word filter to the chart. He says, “One of you chose the word filter as an important word. Anybody have a thought as to why this word was considered important by someone?” The contributor volunteers, “I chose it because the book says that the atmosphere is a filter. It lets the Sun’s light come through to Earth, but it blocks some of the Sun’s dangerous rays.” The teacher responds, “Let’s find where this idea is in the book. I think filter is, indeed, an important word. It captures a key concept about the atmosphere.”

After discussing the word choices, students individually or in pairs write a one-sentence summary of the text: The atmosphere is made up of gases that are held to the Earth by gravity, and it protects our planet.

This strategy requires students to analyze text to determine the major concepts. Students must think about the content of the book in order to make decisions about the relative importance of the words. Students examine individual words, think about what they mean, and consider their relevance to the topic. This strategy focuses students’ attention on the language of the text.

As the class graph is constructed, students observe peers’ word selections and note commonalities and differences. The cumulative data reflects the thinking of the class as a whole, and in their discussion of word selections, the students articulate the meanings of words and how they represent the major ideas in the text.

The teacher can carefully observe the contributions made by individual students, listen to their discussion of the content, and examine their one-sentence summaries to assess their understandings of the science content.

After Reading:
Found Poems

Found Poems are literally “found” in a text. Students creatively use the language of the author to construct a poem on the topic. After the teacher reads and discusses a text with students, students (working in pairs) return to the text to review and reflect on its content and language. They search the text for words and phrases that capture key concepts and use these words and phrases to create an original free-verse poem. The teacher may choose to model the process by developing a found poem as students observe prior to asking them to construct their own.

Each pair of students records all words and phrases of their choice on small strips of paper. Students then manipulate the strips to form a poem, ordering and reordering the words and phrases as desired. Some words may be eliminated during this process; others may be added as the students return to the text to search for more or different words and phrases to better communicate the content. If students want to emphasize an idea, words and phrases may be repeated.

As the student pairs are working on their poems, the teacher circulates and informally interviews them about their word and phrase selections, thus gaining insights into their understanding of the content. For example, one pair of students used the words igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic in their found poem. The teacher asks about these words. If the students state that three kinds of rock are found in Earth’s crust, the teacher tentatively determines that they understand this major idea in the text. Another student pair wrote “1 to 10” and the teacher asks about the meaning of the phrase. If the students cannot explain that 1 to 10 is a scale of hardness and that rocks differ on this scale, the teacher will learn that this concept warrants review.

When the poem is finished, students copy it onto a piece of paper and add illustrations, which can also be informative. Student pairs then share their found poems with their classmates. Poems should be appreciated for their aesthetic value as well as their content. Some poems written by first graders after reading Let’s Go Rock Collecting (Gans 1997) are shown in Figure 2. As the class reviews the poems, the teacher asks students to talk about word and phrase choices. The conversations that occur during found poem sharing provide the teacher with further insights into the students’ understanding of the content.

A Science-Literacy Spark

The strategies described in this article will help your students have successful interactions with informational texts. They promote active engagement with the text itself as well as the content and language of science. They engage students in the processes common to science and literacy. They spark curiosity, discussion, and exploration, and they promote classroom communities of students who learn together.

Hallie Kay Yopp (hyopp@fullerton.edu) is a professor of education at California State University, Fullerton. Ruth Helen Yopp is a professor of education, also at California State University.

Resources

Gans, R. 1997. Let’s go rock collecting. New York: HarperCollins.

Gibbons, G. 1989. Monarch butterfly. New York: Scholastic.

National Research Council (NRC). 1996. National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Taba, H. 1967. Teacher’s handbook for elementary social studies. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

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