Do your students struggle with reading comprehension? Do they stare blankly at complex texts like a deer caught in headlights? If you’re a middle school science teacher, you might think teaching reading comprehension is mostly in the hands of your building’s language arts teachers. But here’s the truth: reading comprehension in the science classroom isn’t just important for understanding your content; it’s essential for all areas of learning. Science texts are jam-packed with complex ideas, unfamiliar words, and an endless parade of graphs, charts, and diagrams. If our students can’t decode and understand these texts, they’ll struggle to grasp concepts in any subject area, panic about strange wording on exam questions, and miss out on the intellectual chain reaction that comes from connecting prior knowledge with new content.
So, let’s explore how we, as science teachers, can tackle this head-on.
Teaching science isn’t just about experiments and explosions (though I will admit it is a perk!). It’s also about reading and understanding informational text loaded with technical terms and interesting structures. Without solid reading comprehension skills, students can’t build the foundational knowledge they need for higher-level problem solving.
Students’ comprehension is so much more than simply reading the words on a page. It involves creating a mental model of the content. Word recognition and language comprehension work together to create skilled readers. That means decoding scientific texts is about understanding word meanings in context.
Middle school science is often the first time students encounter texts that combine charts, graphs, and dense information, and it most definitely will not be the last. Teaching them how to read these complex texts doesn’t just make them better science students; it makes them stronger readers and problem solvers overall.
No matter how much practice you provide, students who are new to decoding complex texts will have no concept of how to begin unless they are shown how to do so. So, teaching reading comprehension in the science classroom starts with explicit instruction. Some of your students may even be great readers in English class, but scientific texts are a whole different beast.
Help students connect what they’re about to read with what they already know. This is where graphic organizers can come in handy. Before diving into a text, use the title of the article and tools like KWL charts (Know, Want to know, Learned) to guide students in activating their background knowledge.
Good readers use metacognitive skills like predicting, questioning, and summarizing. Show your students how you do it. Think out loud while reading a passage, pointing out unfamiliar words, and making connections to prior knowledge. Bonus points if you do this with a current event that peaks students’ interest – it doesn’t even need to be related to science! Make it fun!
Teach students to underline, highlight, and write thoughts in the margins. Encourage generating questions about the material to improve comprehension.
Annotation is a simple way to get students to engage with the text and think critically about its content. Whenever you introduce a new text, whether online or on paper, consider selecting an “annotation color” that students can use. For instance, remind students, “We are now beginning to read a new passage. Get out your green annotation pens!” I recommend uploading pdfs to Kami or other pdf annotation websites so that students can annotate online.
Encourage students to go back to the text to answer questions. This practice strengthens the comprehension process by requiring them to identify the main idea and provide supporting details directly from the passage. Show students how to paraphrase portions of a text and use corresponding citations when necessary.
Scientific texts can be a maze of headings, subheadings, bold words, graphs, and charts. Teaching students how to navigate these features is crucial for improving their comprehension skills. Here are the text features you’ll want to make sure your students are aware of:
Explain that headings and subheadings act as a roadmap for the text. They help students predict what’s coming and organize their thoughts while reading. You may ask your class to have a discussion about what they assume the passage will be about just by reading the headings and subheadings. Furthermore, consistent practice reading passages with proper formatting will help students develop better writing skills for their own essays, especially when they eventually take science classes that require lab reports.
Teach students to pay attention to bolded and italicized terms as well as look for their definitions within the text. These words are often the keys to unlocking the main idea of the passage. If a word is confusing even after reading the text, invite students to use a dictionary to pursue a better understanding.
Science texts love to throw in visual aids, but students often skip over them. Show them how to analyze graphs and charts, connect them to the text, and extract the meaning of the words through visual representation. Think back to my modeling suggestion! You may even want to make a goal to model reading through an exciting current event article at least once a week.
Scientific texts often follow patterns, such as cause and effect or compare and contrast. Teaching students to recognize these structures helps them predict and comprehend the flow of information.
Now, no one said teaching reading comprehension in the science classroom would be easy. That’s why I’ve created a collection of guided reading resources designed to support students’ reading comprehension skills while making your life easier.
Each resource includes:
Here are some great ways to incorporate these guided reading resources into your classroom:
Here are some of my favorite guided reading resources:
Teaching reading comprehension in the science classroom is a crucial part of helping our students become skilled readers and successful scientists. By using evidence-based practices like modeling and breaking down texts, we can support students in mastering this key component of their education.
You never know…your middle school students may come back in a couple of years to thank you for making their high school reading experiences a bit more pleasant!
