ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the roles of texts and reading in students’ scientific thinking. This chapter reviews how modifying science texts to include more transparent links among ideas and more elaborations may support comprehension for English learners and all readers, but modifying texts presents a risk of simplification at the cost of cohesion. Teaching English learners to analyze and unpack science texts may support their comprehension of science content. The chapter next explores two alternative approaches to science text use and reading that may provide opportunities for students to engage in more authentic approximations of scientific reading, reasoning, and practice, and that may be more accessible for all readers, but particularly so for English learners.]