PERSPECTIVE

Science Education and Literacy:Imperatives for the Developedand Developing WorldPaul WebbThis article explores current language-based research aimed at promoting scientific literacy andexamines issues of language use in schools, particularly where science teaching and learning takeplace in teachers’ and learners’ second language. Literature supporting the premise thatpromoting reading, writing, and talking while “doing science” plays a vital role in effectiveteaching and learning of the subject is highlighted. A wide range of studies suggest that, whetherin homogenous or language-diverse settings, science educators can make a significant contributionto both understanding science and promoting literacy.

There is concern around the apparent in-ability of science education to countercurrent negative perceptions of science in

both developing and industrial countries (1).These concerns have resulted in consensus withinthe science education community over the pastfive decades that there is a need to focus onscience literacy. The framework within which thisconsensus initially developed emphasized scien-tific knowledge and applications. However, amore recent consensus that has emerged withinsectors of the science education community is theneed to focus more on the literacy aspects ofscience literacy (2, 3). Norris and Phillips (2) drawa distinction between the fundamental and derivedsenses of science literacy in that the fundamentalsense requires proficiency in science language andthinking, whereas being proficient in the derivedsense means being able to make informed judge-ments on scientific societal issues (4).

A number of researchers (2, 5) believe that forsomeone to be judged scientifically literate inboth the fundamental and derived senses, he orshe must be first proficient in the discourses ofscience, which include reading, writing, andtalking science. In order to achieve these goals,students must be helped to cross the bordersbetween the informal language they speak athome and the academic language used at school,particularly the specialized language of science(5). Furthermore, there are many situations wherethe teaching and learning of science takes placein a second or foreign language.Many previouslyAnglophone colonial states in Africa chooseEnglish as the language of teaching and learningin their schools because it is seen as the languagethat best provides access to economic and socialmobility. In these and many other countries,issues of language are exacerbated by the fact

that often both teachers and learners are second-language speakers in terms of the language ofteaching and learning in their schools (6). It iswithin the above contexts that this paper reviewslanguage-based strategies aimed at promotingscience literacy.

Integration of Language and Science StudiesThe uncritical belief that hands-on science ac-tivities automatically lead to understanding has

been replaced with the realization that this is anecessary, but not sufficient, approach. What isneeded are minds-on experiences that includediscussion, planning, reading, and writing, as wellas deliberations and argumentation. One of thefirst programs that explored the integration oflanguage and science instruction introduced ascience-content reading program emphasizinginquiry activities, science processes, and thecomprehension of written information providedfor the topic at hand (7). The result was that bothreading and science scores improved, as well asstudent attitudes toward science. Further efforts,which included science writing in a large numberof elementary and middle schools in two verylarge school districts, resulted in similar findings(8, 9). Other researchers have also shown thevalue of reading to learn science. Cervetti et al.(10) built and tested a curriculum that used

literacy instruction to help studentsacquire the knowledge, skills, anddispositions of inquiry-based science,an approach that also saw studentsmaking significant gains in terms ofboth literacy and science.

In the El Centro district in Cali-fornia, a science kit–based writingprogram was developed for lowsocioeconomic elementary schoolswith a high percentage of Englishsecond-language learners (11). Theresults of a large-scale study (over1100 students) revealed significantimprovements in grades four and sixscience achievement and grade sixwriting in English. In another study(12), professional development wasprovided that integrated literacy,science, and mathematics acrossfive school districts. The grade fivestudents of teachers who participatedin this program achieved higherscores for reading, writing, mathe-matics, and science, and it was shownthat improved student performancewas significantly affected by teacherbeliefs and classroom practices.Hand (13) used an approach thatrequired learners to pose questions,make claims supported by evidence,consult with experts, and reflect onchanges that theymade to their orig-inal thinking. The Science Writing

Heuristic (SWH) approach represents a movefrom laboratory work as recipes and simple re-port writing to meaningful writing toward sensemaking by integrating understandings of thenature of science, scientific inquiry, and issuesof argumentation. Hand’s (13) research showedgreat benefits to students, and a meta-analysisof six quantitative studies (14), as well as a meta-synthesis of 10 qualitative studies (15), revealedconsistently positive evidence for the SWH ap-

Science, Language, and Literacy

Centre for Educational Research, Technology and Innovation,Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth 6001,South Africa.

Fig. 1. (Top)Writing to learnscience. (Bot-tom) When thelight goes on:thinking aboutscience.

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proach across science topics and at all education-al levels (primary school to university).

Science and Second-Language LearnersResearch has shown that in developed countriesreal benefits accrue from developing nativelanguage literacy when working with English-language learners (6, 16). There is evidence that,where the home language is neglected in favorof a second language such as English, younglearners develop neither language sufficiently(17). Similarly, in previously colonized Africanand Asian societies, where the teaching andlearning of science often takes place in a secondor foreign language for bothteacher and learners, the use ofan unfamiliar European lan-guage often results in restrictedteaching methods and poorstudent achievement (18). Con-versely, when Haitian-Creole stu-dents were encouraged to usethe vernacular to discuss topicsin science, both their concep-tual understandings and theircapacity to recognize establishedrelationships between claimsand evidence improved (19).

In the South African con-text, where most parents andteachers tend to choose En-glish instruction for their chil-dren because it is perceived tobe the language of socio-economic power and mobility,the teachers do most of thetalking while children under-stand little and remain silentand passive (16). These chil-dren’s performance in nationaland international tests of sci-ence, literacy, and numeracy isexceptionally poor (17). In contrast, studies inNigeria and Zambia have revealed that betterresults were produced in schools where mothertongue instruction was continued until second-ary level and have shown that too early an em-phasis on English impairs children’s subsequentlearning (18). Consistently poor South Africanresults, as well as well-researched argumentsaround language use in schools, have stimulatedSouth African studies that investigated the talk-ing, writing, and arguing aspects of science inelementary and middle schools (Fig. 1). Theseinvestigations included research on classroomdiscussion (20), use of the “science notebook”approach (21), and argumentation (22). All ofthe studies incorporated the use of students’native language and produced encouragingresults in terms of improved problem-solving,science, and argumentation skills, respectively.

These South African findings resulted in thedevelopment of an approach (23) that aimed to

integrate reading to learn science and learning toread for science; exploratory talk toward inves-tigable questions, planning, and doing an investi-gation; and scaffolded writing to learn science,argumentation, and critical thinking. The basictenets of the model are illustrated in Fig. 2.

The stimulus (the reading material, discrepant,or unexpected event, etc.) provides the stimulationfor discussion but can also help access informationneeded to raise investigable and researchablequestions. The discussion and the investigablequestion generated provide the framework forplanning and executing the investigation, whereasthe data generated are recorded in a science

notebook (24). Once the line of learning is drawnin the children’s science notebook—that is, theyhave drawn all the conclusions that they can fromtheir classroom investigation—further reading andresearch allows them to go beyond the limits oftheir investigatable question. This means that theycan explore the noninvestigatable but researchablequestions that were raised as part of their earlierdiscussions through other forms of informationgathering. Lastly, getting students to record theirarguments within an argumentation writing frameprovides an exercise that aims to improve theirunderstandings of the nature of science, scientificprocesses and procedures, and notion of audienceand presentation. When teachers were trained touse the model, issues of bilingualism and codeswitching were discussed, and they were encour-aged to make explicit to their students that theycould legitimately discuss, argue, and write intheir home language while doing a scientific in-vestigation (23).

The model was implemented with grade sixteachers and learners in a deep rural area of SouthAfricawhere, although the language of teaching andlearning in these schools is English, the children andparents rarely hear or speak the language. The re-sults of this 1-year interventionmirrored those of theearlier South African studies described above, butnew findings were that the students’ English read-ing skills improved significantly, as did their writingand listening skills in their native language (23).

Language and LearningThere are a number of research findings, both inthe developed and developing world, that show

the benefits of native language instruction forEnglish-language learners (25, 26). In terms ofscience education, it is suggested that for suc-cessful learning to take place attention must bepaid to cognitive development in both the lan-guage of instruction and the students’ native lan-guage. One such way of doing this is by teacherscode-switching (when possible) and/or allowingchildren to first make sense of what is expected ofthem in their home language and then to translatewhat they understand into the official language ofteaching and learning. In turn, there is growingsupport for the premise that promoting reading,writing, and talking while “doing science” playsa vital role in effective teaching and learning ofthe subject. In the final analysis, what is impor-tant is that, whether in homogenous or language-diverse settings, science educators can make asignificant contribution to both understandingscience and promoting literacy. As such, theyshould be encouraged to pay closer attention to

Doing

Talking

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StimulusInvestigatable

questionInquiry

Investigation Argumentation

SummativeFormative

Readingto fostercuriosity

Discrepantevent Reports

Publications

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PresentationsDatacollection

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ideas & words

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Pose newquestions

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Fig. 2. An integrated strategy for promoting teaching and learning toward scientific literacy.

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SPECIALSECTION

their learners’ struggles to come to terms withunfamiliar language, discourse patterns, and theoften formidable conventions of science (27).

References1. P. Fensham, Science Education Policy-Making: Eleven

Emerging Issues [Commissioned by United NationsEducational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization(UNESCO) Section for Science, Technical, and VocationalEducation; Paris; 2008].

2. S. P. Norris, L. M. Phillips, Sci. Educ. 87, 224(2003).

3. L. D. Yore, G. L. Bisanz, B. M. Hand, Int. J. Sci. Educ. 25,689 (2003).

4. B. M. Hand, V. Prain, L. D. Yore, in Writing as a LearningTool: Integrating Theory and Practice, P. Tynjälä,L. Mason, K. Lonka, Eds. (Kluwer, Dordrecht, Netherlands,2001), pp. 105–129.

5. L. D. Yore, D. F. Treagust, Int. J. Sci. Educ. 28, 291(2006).

6. H. Alidou et al., Optimizing Learning and Education inAfrica—the Language Factor: A Stock Taking Research onMother Tongue and Bilingual Education in Sub-Saharan Africa(UNESCO Institute for Education , Libreville, Gabon, 2006).

7. N. R. Romance, M. R. Vitale, J. Res. Sci. Teach. 29, 545(1992).

8. N. R. Romance, M. R. Vitale, in Linking Scienceand Literacy in the K–8 Classroom, R. Douglas,

M. P. Klentschy, K. Worth, W. Binder, Eds. [NationalScience Teachers Association (NSTA) Press, Arlington, VA,2006], pp. 391–405.

9. N. R. Romance, M. R. Vitale, NSF/IERI Science IDEASProject (Technical Report 0228353-0014, Florida AtlanticUniversity, Boca Raton, FL, 2008).

10. G. Cervetti, P. Pearson, M. Bravo, J. Barber, in LinkingScience and Literacy in the K–8 Classroom, R. Douglas,M. Klentschy, K. Worth, Eds. (NSTA Press, Arlington,VA, 2006), pp. 221–224.

11. O. M. Amaral, L. Garrison, M. Klentschy, Biling. Res. J.26, 213 (2002).

12. M. Revak, P. Kuerbis, paper presented at theInternational Meeting of the Association for ScienceTeacher Education, St. Louis, MO, 9 to 12 January2008.

13. B. Hand, Ed., Science Inquiry, Argument and Language: ACase for the Science Writing Heuristic (Sense Publishers,Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2007).

14. M. Gunel, B. Hand, V. Prain, Int. J. Sci. Math. Educ. 5,615 (2007).

15. M. A. McDermott, B. Hand, paper presented at theInternational Meeting of the Association for ScienceTeacher Education, St. Louis, MO, 9 to 12 January 2008.

16. M. Setati, J. Adler, Y. Reed, A. Bapoo, Lang. Educ. 16,128 (2002).

17. Department of Education, National Education QualityInitiative and Education, Science and Skills Development

Grade 6 Systemic Evaluation (Department of Education,Pretoria, South Africa, 2005).

18. V. Rodseth, Bilingualism and Multilingualism inEducation (Centre for Continuing Development,Johannesburg, 1995).

19. C. Ballenger, Lang. Educ. 11, 1 (1997).20. P. Webb, D. Treagust, Res. Sci. Educ. 36, 381

(2006).21. M. G. Villanueva, P. Webb, Afr. J. Res. Math. Sci. Technol.

Educ. 12, 5 (2008).22. P. Webb, Y. Williams, L. Meiring, Afr. J. Res. Math. Sci.

Technol. Educ. 12, 4 (2008).23. P. Webb, Int. J. Environ. Sci. Educ. 4, 313 (2009).24. C. R. Nesbit, T. Y. Hargrove, L. Harrelson, B. Maxey,

Implementing Science Notebooks in the Primary Grades:Science Activities Journal (Heldref, Washington, DC,2003).

25. D. August, T. Shanahan, Eds., Developing Literacy inSecond-Language Learners: Report of the NationalLiteracy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth(Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 2006).

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Language, Theories, Methods, History, Traditions andValues (Sense Publishers, Rotterdam,Netherlands, 2009).

10.1126/science.1182596

PERSPECTIVE

Academic Language andthe Challenge of Reading forLearning About ScienceCatherine E. Snow

A major challenge to students learning science is the academic language in which science iswritten. Academic language is designed to be concise, precise, and authoritative. To achieve thesegoals, it uses sophisticated words and complex grammatical constructions that can disruptreading comprehension and block learning. Students need help in learning academic vocabularyand how to process academic language if they are to become independent learners of science.

Literacy scholars and secondary teachersalike are puzzled by the frequency withwhich students who read words accurately

and fluently have trouble comprehending text(1, 2). Such students have mastered what wastraditionally considered the major obstacle toreading success: the depth and complexity of theEnglish spelling system. But many middle- andhigh-school students are less able to convert theirword-reading skills into comprehension whenconfronted with texts in science (or math orsocial studies) than they are when confronted withtexts of fiction or discursive essays. The greaterdifficulty of science, math, and social studies textsthan of texts encountered in English language

arts (mostly narratives) suggests that the com-prehension of “academic language” may be onesource of the challenge. So what is academiclanguage?

Academic language is one of the terms [othersinclude language of education (3), language ofschooling (4), scientific language (5), and aca-demic English (6, 7)] used to refer to the form oflanguage expected in contexts such as the expo-sition of topics in the school curriculum, makingarguments, defending propositions, and synthe-sizing information. There is no exact boundarywhen defining academic language; it falls towardone end of a continuum (defined by formality oftone, complexity of content, and degree of im-personality of stance), with informal, casual, con-versational language at the other extreme. Thereis also no single academic language, just as there

is no single variety of educated American En-glish. Academic language features vary as afunction of discipline, topic, and mode (writtenversus oral, for example), but there are certaincommon characteristics that distinguish highlyacademic from less academic or more con-versational language and that make academiclanguage—even well-written, carefully con-structed, and professionally edited academiclanguage—difficult to comprehend and evenharder to produce (8).

Among the most commonly noted features ofacademic language are conciseness, achieved byavoiding redundancy; using a high density ofinformation-bearing words, ensuring precisionof expression; and relying on grammatical pro-cesses to compress complex ideas into fewwords(8, 9). Less academic language, on the otherhand, such as that used in e-mails, resembles orallanguage forms more closely: Most sentencesbegin with pronouns or animate subjects; verbsrefer to actions rather than relations; and longsentences are characterized by sequencing of in-formation rather than embeddings. The two ex-cerpts in Fig. 1, both about torque (a topic includedin many state standards for 7th-grade science),display the difference between a nonacademictext (from the Web site www.lowrider.com) andan academic text (from theWeb sitewww.tutorvista.com).

A striking difference between more informaland more academic language exemplified inthe Lowrider/TutorVista text comparison is thegreater presence of expressive, involved, inter-personal stancemarkers in the first Lowrider posting(“…guys get caught up…,” “I frequently getasked…,” “Most of us…,”) and in the response

Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University,Cambridge, MA.

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Science, Language, and Literacy