In this presentation at the 2009 STANYS conference in Rochester, NY, Jacquey Barber discusses the importance of explicit instruction in disciplinary literacy practices. She shares the Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading approach, which includes a balance of learning modalities and uses reading and writing in ways that are authentic to science.
In this presentation at the National Science Teachers’ Association 2010 meeting in Philadelphia, exemplar firsthand science and literacy experiences from the Shoreline Science unit are used to demonstrate key aspects of the Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading approach to science-literacy integration. Through observing and comparing samples of sand, reading Gary’s Sand Journal, and interacting with several models of erosion as a process that shapes the Earth, participants learned about the affordances of combining firsthand and secondhand experiences to help students understand the natural world.
In this presentation at the National Science Teachers’ Association 2010 meeting in Philadelphia, exemplar firsthand science and literacy experiences from the Variation and Adaptation unit are used to demonstrate key aspects of the Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading approach to science-literacy integration. Participants engaged in reading the context-setting book Blue Whales and Buttercups, observed and classified birds based on their characteristics, and learned about the unit’s multimodal approach to teaching students to make inferences based on evidence.
In this presentation at the National Science Teachers’ Association 2010 meeting in Philadelphia, exemplar firsthand science and literacy experiences from the Shoreline Science unit are used to demonstrate key aspects of the Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading approach to science-literacy integration. Participants read Chemical Reactions Everywhere and created an exciting chemical reaction that forms the central inquiry experience for the entire unit. Participants also engaged with texts and models that expose students to foundational ideas about atoms and molecules.
In this presentation at the International Reading Association 2010 meeting in Chicago, the presenters engaged participants in learning about the engaging student books that are an integral part of the Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading program. The roles of text in inquiry science were discussed, and participants learned about the reciprocal relationship between knowledge and comprehension. Many examples from Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading books as well as trade books were provided.
In this workshop at the International Reading Association 2010 meeting in Chicago, Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading literacy developers shared the rationale for integrating science and writing and presented the approach to explicit, carefully scaffolded writing instruction that characterizes the Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading program. Participants engaged in hands-on activities focused on three genres of science writing taught in the program: scientific descriptions, scientific explanations, and scientific comparisons, using Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading books as mentor texts.
In this March 2010 presentation at the annual ASCD conference, both literacy and science developers discussed the Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading approach to academic language development. Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading helps students develop facility with language by teaching them to think, talk, and write like scientists. Participants learned about this research-validated approach to integrated science/literacy instruction and how it helps all students learn academic language.
Co-Principal Investigator P. David Pearson is a faculty member and former dean of the Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley. In addition to his leadership of the Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading project, David is a renowned scholar who speaks frequently on a wide range of issues. Click the link below to access an archive of his recent presentations on a variety of current topics in literacy education, including reading assessment, the history of reading instruction, and educational policy.
For more information about P. David Pearson and the Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley, visit:
http://gse.berkeley.edu/faculty/pdpearson/pdpearson.html
The TextProject aims to bring beginning readers and struggling readers of any age to high levels of literacy through a variety of strategies and tools.
Science IDEAS is an instructional model designed to accelerate student achievement in science, reading comprehension and writing. Science IDEAS integrates reading comprehension and writing into in-depth science instruction that replaces traditional basal reading/language arts instruction.
In a GiSML classroom, students participate in a learning community in which there is complementary use of first and second-hand investigations to learn about the physical world, resulting in children’s acquisition of deep understanding (demonstrated by language and action) of both the products of science and the nature of scientific reasoning.
