Outcome of teacher-centered professional development on the integration of reading into science content instruction using functional language analysis

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20256648

This purpose of this study was to examine the affect the use of functional language analysis had on middle schools science teachers willingness to integrate reading into their science instruction and their perception of how the use of functional language analysis affected the learning of their students. Further, a literature review of reading in science, teachers attitude about the role of reading in content instruction, the knowledge base teachers need to integrate reading into science instruction, and factors that influence science education at the middle school level informed this study. The overarching research questions for this study ask whether functional language analysis is a practical approach to integrating reading into science instruction to support the teaching of content. As such, the study sought to answer the questions: 1) how does professional development on the use of functional language analysis as a reading approach lead science teachers to integrate reading into their science content instruction? 2) how does the use of functional language analysis as a reading approach support students learning in science, as perceived by the teachers employing the approach? An inductive qualitative research approach was used to explore and describe the perceptions of teachers using a rich-description of their experiences. The findings indicate that the use of functional language analysis to integrate reading into science instruction provided teachers in the study with a consistent approach for teaching reading as part of their science instruction and the content knowledge about reading specific to science, allowed the teachers to focus on the content while teaching reading skills, contributed to the students perception of their ability to learn and willingness to put forth the effort to learn which resulted in an increase in the students class participation as observed by the teacher, and increased the teachers in the study students understanding about reading in science and thereby their mind-set regarding their ability to read science text, as perceived by the participants. The findings from this study has the potential of informing the content of professional development offered to science teachers and the content of the methods courses they take at the college level.