Extracting Information Not Like Pulling Teeth

This article presents graphic organizers as a way for students to determine what is important in publications and text sources outside the classroom. The research supporting this learning s... See More

This article presents graphic organizers as a way for students to determine what is important in publications and text sources outside the classroom. The research supporting this learning strategy is included and supports the constructivist theory of learning that students actively create meaning by scaffolding their prior knowledge to their newly acquired knowledge. The author suggests using a computer software program such as Inspiration to make the creation of graphic organizers less labor intensive. He purports that using graphic organizers improved his students’ scientific literacy by making it easier for them to extract information from expository text. I appreciated how the author included a template of a graphic organizer his eighth graders used when they read science journal articles. He also included a rubric for grading his students’ article summaries.

Graphic Organizers = Reading Success

In this article, the author explains how she implemented a current events reading program into her science curriculum. I really like that this program uses literature outside of the textboo... See More

In this article, the author explains how she implemented a current events reading program into her science curriculum. I really like that this program uses literature outside of the textbook to help students learn about science. I think this is very important because it helps our students learn and understand that science extends beyond their textbooks. I also liked that she used a graphic organizer with some of her students to help them learn to identity the main idea and glean important details while reading technical material. The author does include an example of the graphic organizer used for the program. Unfortunately, although she discusses a rubric used to evaluate student learning, she did not include the rubric in the article.