A Pilot Study of Explicit Instructional Scaffolds to Teach Science Argument Writing

An emerging body of research suggests that content-rich literacy instruction has the power to expand elementary children's domain-general and domain-specific literacy skills. For content teachers, such as science teachers, explicit instruction in disciplinary-language and literacy practices can support students reading and writing of school-based texts without sacrificing valuable, and limited, instructional time. The current pilot study tests the effectiveness of explicit instructional routines at the word-, sentence-, and discourse-level to support Grade 4 student science argument writing. Analysis of Co-variance was used to assess group differences of the intervention versus an active control students' science knowledge and argument writing after controlling for the effects gender and topic prior knowledge. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]