The effects of teaching expository reading strategies during science instruction on content knowledge and overall reading ability

Thesis (M.A., Education (Language and Literacy)) -- California State University, Sacramento, 2010.Reading is essential in every subject area, and students must become proficient readers in order to learn content in these classes. To become proficient readers in the content areas, students must be explicitly taught how to comprehend expository text. Sadly, too many successful reading students in the primary grades begin to struggle with reading when they get to the intermediate grades in elementary school because they have not learned these strategies. These students then, in middle and high school, continue to struggle and are unable to pass their science and social studies courses. Educators should teach strategic expository reading strategies that will enable students to comprehend their content area texts. Research shows that students learn a great deal of narrative reading strategies and decoding in the early elementary grades and that by high school students know how to comprehend well. When it comes to expository texts many students are lacking the reading strategies to comprehend their texts. The purpose of this study was to find possible answers to the problems noted above, so the researcher devised a method for students in her experimental group to comprehend their science textbook by teaching them before, during, and after expository reading strategies. This study posits that teaching expository reading strategies enhances science instruction and helps improve comprehension of science textbooks. The researcher concluded that the explicit teaching of expository reading strategies during science class improved her experimental group???s understanding of science concepts, and made these students more strategic readers compared to the control group students whose teacher solely taught content.Education (Language and Literacy