ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a theoretical framework for well-designed textbooks that integrates curriculum, instruction, and comprehensibility. By searching for these three textbook characteristics, it is possible to identify clearly distinguishable design features that the chapter could expect to affect students' scientific understanding and learning. The chapter applies the framework to several examples of textbook materials and one trade book. The author has added the trade book because current science curricula for elementary school, developed by organizations such as the National Science Resources Center and the National Academy of Sciences, include very little reading. The chapter demonstrates an approach for highlighting design differences in science textbooks and trade books. The response in some curriculum materials has been to limit children's reading in science to one or two short passages per curriculum unit. The curriculum must use practical examples and activities carefully chosen according to the discipline's structure for at least the early years of schooling and models and analogies thereafter.
