Improving Scientific Literacy through Reading Strategies: An Action Research Study

The purpose of this quantitative action research study is to examine a Scientific Reading Intervention Model (SRIM) with students enrolled in Honors Chemistry at a private high school in South Carolina. Students were given a pre-test prior to the intervention. The research took place over a six-week period in the spring of 2017. A teacher-participant worked with the researcher-participant to implement the intervention that consisted of three reading activities—pre-reading, during-reading, and post-reading. These three activities were designed to enable the low-level science readers to better comprehend their chemistry texts by activating prior knowledge with an anticipation guide, identifying key concepts through coding and connecting facts to comprehend a big picture by constructing concept maps. Students were given a post-test at the end of the unit and a simple t-test was used to analyze the pre-test and post-test data. Other data collection included semi-structured interviews with the teacher-participant and the student-participants as well as classroom observations during the implementation of the unit. Findings include reading strategies for chemistry students. An action plan includes teacher in-service for science faculty that focuses on the need and importance of implementing scientific reading strategies to improve comprehension