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Developing science literacy requires not only firsthand explorations of the material world but also secondhand investigations with text. A potentially powerful kind of text in science is trade books. This column describes four classroom ploys for using science trade books to enhance students' secondhand experiences.

The Common Core State Standards highlight the need to read--independently, closely, and proficiently--increasingly complex texts. However, they do not specify how such reading is to be done. This column provides a brief critique of text complexity and close reading and offers some concrete ideas for operationalizing these two concepts in secondary subject area classrooms.

The recent call for a disciplinary perspective on literacy instruction in the content areas has generated considerable interest among literacy educators. This column addresses some of the questions that have been raised about disciplinary literacy. These questions concern the definition and assessment of disciplinary literacy, as well as the timing, teacher capacity, evidence base, and target audience for disciplinary literacy instruction.

Adolescent literacy has emerged as a "very hot" topic in literacy education over the past few years (Cassidy, Valadez, Garrett, & Barrera, 2010). Its ascendency to the national spotlight reflects the growing recognition among policymakers, researchers, and educators that continuing emphasis on literacy and literacy instruction beyond the elementary grades is key to ensuring that students are college and career ready by the time they graduate from high school (Council on Advancing Adolescent Literacy, 2010). A major concern in the United States is that more than 70% of students in grades 4-12 lack the skills to read and write proficiently in academic content areas (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011; Salahu-Din, Persky, & Miller, 2008). An array of national reports and other professional resources has offered many pedagogical recommendations for addressing this concern. These recommendations reflect four distinct approaches--cognitive, sociocultural, linguistic, and critical--each with its own epistemological assumptions, set of practices, and evidence base. Existing literacy programs for adolescents typically combine these approaches in various ways, with some adopting a more cognitive or linguistic orientation and others placing a greater emphasis on the sociocultural or critical dimension. This article provides a brief synthesis and critique of these four approaches, suggesting that efforts to develop adolescents' content area literacies must recognize the strengths and limitations of each approach, as well as their complementarities. (Contains 1 table.)

Disciplinary literacy is defined here as the ability to engage in social, semiotic, and cognitive practices consistent with those of content experts. Characterizing literacy development as a process of braiding 3 language strands of everyday language, abstract language, and metaphoric language, this article describes the lexical and grammatical patterns typical of disciplinary texts in the subjects of language arts, science, mathematics, and history, showing how language is used in discipline-specific ways to present knowledge, construe value, and create specialized texts. It argues that literacy instruction in academic disciplines should move beyond the time-honored focus on basic skills (e.g., vocabulary, fluency), general cognitive strategies (e.g., predicting, inferencing), and generic learning strategies (e.g., highlighting, note taking) to embrace an emphasis on discipline-specific practices that promote simultaneous engagement with disciplinary language and disciplinary content.

As the knowledge that students have to learn becomes more specialized and complex in secondary schools, the language that constructs such knowledge also becomes more technical, dense, abstract, and complex, patterning in ways that enable content experts to engage in specialized social and semiotic practices. In order to effectively engage with the texts of disciplinary learning at the secondary level, adolescents need to develop new literacy skills and strategies in each subject area. This paper illuminates some of the ways language is used in secondary science, history, and mathematics and describes an approach to secondary reading, functional language analysis, that offers teachers strategies for focusing on language itself as a way to help students comprehend and critique the advanced texts of secondary schooling. (Contains 2 figures and 2 tables.)

Despite recent calls for border crossing between reading and science, few studies have examined the impact of reading infusion in the science curriculum on students' science literacy. In this quasi-experimental study, the authors investigated the effects of an inquiry-based science curriculum that integrated explicit reading strategy instruction and quality science trade books on the development of science literacy among middle school students. Students in 10 sixth-grade science classes from 1 public middle school in the United States were randomly assigned to 2 conditions: inquiry-based science only (IS) and inquiry-based science plus reading (ISR). Results from the analyses of covariance showed that the ISR students significantly outperformed their IS peers on all measures of science literacy. It was suggested that even a modest amount of reading infusion could have a positive impact on middle school students' science literacy. The limitations and implications of the study were also discussed. (Contains 1 table.)

Recent calls for border crossing between reading and science have heightened the need to support science teachers in integrating reading into science and to verify the robustness of this approach in the context of inquiry-based science. In this paper, we share what we did, found, and learned in a collaborative project in which a team of university-based reading educators and school-based science teachers worked together to infuse reading strategy instruction and quality science trade books into inquiry-based sixth-grade science classrooms. We suggest that infusing reading into middle school science enhances science teaching and learning, but is a complex, multifaceted undertaking. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)

As students transition from primary to intermediate grades, the kind of materials that they are expected to read and write become more heavily dominated by expository texts. Expository texts contain grammatical patterns that are distinct from those used in primary-grade storybooks. These linguistic features pose new comprehension challenges for students. This article identifies some of the special linguistic features of expository texts and describes several classroom-based strategies for helping students develop insights on the language through which expository texts are constructed. It argues that reading instruction for intermediate grades needs to go beyond the "Fab Five" (i.e., phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension strategies) endorsed by the National Reading Panel in the United States to include tasks that specifically address the unique linguistic challenges of expository reading. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

Too many middle school students struggle to comprehend their textbooks in science and other content areas. Thus, many adolescent learners lag behind in developing scientific literacy, which the National Research Council has defined as sufficient understanding of the scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic life, and economic productivity. With these concerns in mind, professors and doctoral students from the University of Florida at Gainesville collaborated with two middle school teachers in the 2004-05 academic year to integrate reading instruction and a wide range of science readings into these teachers' 6th grade science classrooms. Their action research team provided students with explicit instruction in reading strategies, exposure to award-winning science books and related activities, and professional development focused on building teachers' comfort with integrating reading into science. End-of-year test results showed that students who received this intervention achieved higher scores in both science and reading than did students whose teachers didn't participate.

The language used to construct knowledge, beliefs, and worldviews in school science is distinct from the social language that students use in their everyday ordinary life. This difference is a major source of reading difficulty for many students, especially struggling readers and English-language learners. This article identifies some of the linguistic challenges involved in reading middle-school science texts and suggests several teaching strategies to help students cope with these challenges. It is argued that explicit attention to the unique language of school science should be an integral part of science literacy pedagogy. (Contains 2 figures and 6 tables.)

Developing academic, or school-based, literacy poses a significant challenge for many students, because the language through which academic subjects are presented is markedly different from the social language that students use in everyday ordinary life. This article focuses on one aspect of academic language, the functions of nouns and nominal structures in constructing knowledge in different subject areas and the challenges they present for comprehension of academic texts. Using a functional linguistics framework and analyzing written texts from language arts, science, and history, at elementary and secondary levels, we illustrate the ways nominal expressions expand the amount of information in a clause, establish and maintain reference, and enable information to be distilled and further expanded. We also show how the semantic features of the nominal elements vary in different academic registers, as texts introduce grammatical "participants" of different types according to the purposes of the text. We suggest that the notion of linguistic register offers a means of transcending debates about academic language, enabling a pedagogy that can raise students' consciousness about specific grammatical resources and how those resources function to construct knowledge in the language of schooling.

Scientific writing contains unique linguistic features that construe special realms of scientific knowledge, values, and beliefs. An understanding of the functionality of these features is critical to the development of literacy in science. This article describes some of the key linguistic features of scientific writing, discusses the challenges these features present to comprehension and composition of science texts in school, and argues for greater attention to the specialized language of science in teaching and learning.

The article describes a longitudinal professional development project in rural Florida (USA) schools that supports the efforts of inservice teachers to make pedagogical transitions from total reliance on prepackaged commercial programmes to making informed decisions about curriculum and pedagogy autonomously. It demonstrates that in order to initiate and sustain qualitative changes in teaching practices, conscious efforts must be made to address a multitude of barriers at the administrative, professional and personal levels. It suggests that professional development efforts in education must recognise the complex, multifaceted and lifelong nature of becoming and being an effective literacy teacher.

This study examined 28 preservice teachers' interpretations of a 9-hour, field-based reading block. Qualitative analyses of varied data sources, including surveys, journals, and interviews, revealed that during the block experience the students (a) became more prepared and confident to teach children who experience reading difficulties, (b) developed new conceptions of teaching and learning processes, and (c) gained a more positive attitude toward and respect for the teaching profession. We argue that these preservice teachers' professional growth was facilitated by an integrated block of courses that affords time, intensity, and richness of experience, and by a learning context consistent with the social constructivist principles. We further suggest that it is possible to design and implement a coherent curriculum that is at once "intensely academic" and "intensely practical," one that emphasizes the cultivation of professional knowledge and wisdom without losing sight of the need for skills development.

Investigates young children's developing understanding of three essential features of book language (i.e. autonomy, conventionality, unique grammar) in two curricular genres (i.e. narrative and expository) in a literature-based, multigrade (1st-3rd) classroom. Demonstrates emergent understanding of autonomy, limited familiarity with conventionality and an embryonic sense of unique grammar. (SG)

Examines young children's communicative competence in schooled narrative and the nature of its development. Analyzes four stories for inclusion of a variety of linguistic markers that embody three essential features of schooled narrative--autonomy, conventionality, and specialized grammar. Suggests that the development of schooled narrative competence is non-uniform, feature-specific, unstable, and complex. (SG)

Notes "register" refers to the variety of language that is appropriate for a particular situational context. Examines young children's development of register switching expertise as they become independent readers through the intervention of a Reading Recovery program. Suggests that developing expertise in register switching may compose part of the process of learning to read and write. (RS)

Uses a cultural studies framework to demonstrate how multicultural literature is often trivialized and misused in literature-based classrooms. Critiques actual literature discussions and examines the content of several Asian American children's books to move toward a more complete understanding of critical literacy pedagogy and what it means to "read" in a pluralistic society. (SR)

Examined preschool children's self-management as they engaged in a literacy task of constructing an "autonomous" text for others to read. Analyzed texts for their holistic quality, and identified metacognitive utterances surrounding the texts, which showed the development of metacognition and its indications for preschoolers. (JPB)

Examines the need for a new perspective in research on young children's writing development, one which identifies writing as a language process in which children construct meaning. Presents an example of a linguistic analysis of a child's writing. Discusses the implications for early-childhood educators of a text-focused approach to studying children's writing. (KB)

Uses concept maps to reveal important changes in the knowledge base of preservice teachers. Finds that preservice teachers in a school-based, three-course "literacy block" constructed richer, more professional, and more complete concept maps (relating more literacy teaching and subject-matter ideas together with logically appropriate connectors) than the university-based group with fewer hours in the elementary school. (SR)

Finds developmental changes in both cohesive harmony and holistic writing quality in the writing of first graders, suggesting that cohesive harmony may be a sensitive measure of textual quality. Finds no consistent relationship between measures of cohesive ties and cohesive harmony. Suggests that cohesive harmony is a viable tool for discourse analysis. (SR)

Defines and discusses at-risk readers, and reviews assessments of student classroom performance. Strategies that have been successful with at-risk readers in the elementary classroom are discussed, including dramatization, parallel drama, semantic guides, word images, connecting reading and writing, and media-intervention. (SLD)