Re: [Phys-l] Students' READING abilities

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

The Thinking Science of Shayer & Adey increased scores on math, science, and
"English".  So the ability to read can go hand in hand with science.  Most
science books in pre-college courses have been changed to avoid problems
with decoding things like what is the subject?  Unfortunately this also
removes some important challenges that the students need.  The only book I
know which deliberately puts in slightly challenging syntax is "Minds on
Physics".  It pushes students to stop being a scavenger hunter.

Part of the problem is that students have actually been trained to look for
key phrases for success in standardized tests.  So they seldom really read
something and try to understand what it is saying.  They do the same thing
with math word problems, and science problems.

The reading specialists think that success in science will come when the
students are trained to read better.  Unfortunately that ignores the role of
strong preconceptions.  So far I have seen no evidence for success even
approaching PER from the reading specialists.  There are published papers
which show that science can be used to help students read better.  In
particular non English speakers have shown success through science courses.
So it is possible to give students slightly challenging text in science and
in an inquiry course they will learn to decode it in context and improve
their reading skills.  But it is important that the text should be
structured as a learning cycle rather than just definition-example.  The
definition-example text should work better if the students read it "after"
exploration of a concept.  Reading requires a context to make sense, and the
exploration provides a context for the students.

Anyone who uses Socratic dialog should be aware that a number of students
have trouble finding the subject or even worse the direct object.  Of course
if you listen to Jabberwocky with ear muffs on you can sometimes reinterpret
it to make perfect sense  "slimy toads?...".  I wonder how many students
treated it as just a series of mis-spellings?  But the same students who can
not interpret it will make grammatically wrong statements that say the
opposite of what they intend.  And when marked off, they will insist that
the statement was correct.

This actually comes around to the fact that a number of students have
general cognitive deficits such as "lack of need for accuracy and
precision".  This shows up in their speech, writing, and science.
Unfortunately just training them in reading or writing does not often attack
the deficit.  A program such as Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment does
produce improvement, and possibly also Thinking Science.

Unfortunately a one shot awareness activity, such as the Jabberwocky quiz,
really does nothing to improve a general cognitive deficit or the need to
read carefully.  One needs to change the conventional structure to an
inquiry mode with frequent communication between students, and students and
teacher.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> I am mostly a lurker here and have not had a chance to search the
> literature, but I was wondering what studies have been done correlating
> READING ability with success in science courses.  I have seen discussion
> here (and elsewhere) about correlations with high school physics, math
> skills, Piaget cognitive levels, teaching methods, and others.
>
>
> But what about reading ability?  This came up because I gave a "quiz"
> over the famous nonsense poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll ("Twas
> brillig, and the slithy toves, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe ...").  I
> then asked a few questions like "What were the toves like?"
>
> The point I was TRYING to make with the quiz was that it is possible to
> read something and get an answer without the least understanding of what
> is being said (much like the typical "parrot answers" I get on questions
> about the reading).  They need to dig deeper and THINK about what the
> words mean.
>
> The OTHER lesson I learned is that a small but significant number of
> students didn't seem to be able to use the structure of the sentence to
> decide that "toves" was the subject of the sentence and "slithy" was an
> adjective describing the "toves"!  Granted this was an introductory
> Physical Science class that draws some of the lower level students at
> our community college, but I was still surprised at the results.
>
>
> Perhaps in addition to teaching science (and math and how to use a
> calculator and how to think abstractly), we also need to think about
> teaching how to READ!
>
>
> Tim Folkerts
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