Below you will find several recent observations about the
relationship between reading and science process skills.
Significant improvement in both science and reading scores
occurred when the regular basal reading program was replaced
with reading in science that correlated with the science
curriculum (Romance and Vitale, 2001). Teachers should help
students recognize the important role that prior knowledge plays
and teach them to use that knowledge when learning science
through reading (Barton and Jordan, 2001). Most students arrive
at the science teacher's classroom knowing how to read, but few
understand how to use reading for learning science content
(Santa, Havens, and Harrison, 1996). The same skills that make
good scientists also make good readers: engaging prior
knowledge, forming hypotheses, establishing plans, evaluating
understanding, determining the relative importance of
information, describing patterns, comparing and contrasting,
making inferences, drawing conclusions, generalizing, evaluating
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