SUMMARY

Introducing Science Concepts to Primary Students Through Read Alouds : Interaction &
Multiple Text Make the Difference is the topic chosen by Natalie Heisey and Linda Kucan to
carry out a study. Read-Alouds can be defined as a person (instructor) read on a text loudly to the
entire classroom. Why did both of the authors choose to investigate on this topic? This is because
they believed that through the technique of read-alouds that lead by the teachers for the primary
school students, the effectiveness of the students mastering in Science concepts, structures and
facts can be empowered. In this research, the authors focused on the first and second graders of
students, total is sixteen of them, of a school in northeastern region of United States to be
participated in this study.

REVIEW
For the content of this research, two types of approaches in read-alouds test were used, a
during-reading test and after-reading test. A group of four students of first graders and five from
second graders were tested for during-reading part while another three of first grade students and
four of second grade students were took part for after reading test. During the investigation, three
different texts on the story of three scientists were read by Natalie and Linda to the participants.
Snowflakes Bentley witten by Martin 1998, Rare Treasure Mary Anning and Her Remarkable
Discoveries which the author, Brown wrote it in year 1999 and The Boy Who Drew Birds : A
Story of John James Audobon a story of Daries in 2004. Their aims were to observe the
understanding of the students of the work area of a scientist, what they do and how they
investigate on a thing. So, they designed several questions the purposes of helping the students to
develop ideas on what scientist do, give specific information about the content in the texts,
making a relationship among those three texts and lastly to guide them to have a clear idea on
scientific terms, as most of the students found that those terms are difficult to understand.
For the during-reading session, the samples of questions that were asked to the students
were What types of actions done by Willied in showing the characteristic as scientist? and
Would you call him/her as a scientist? after the investigators finished their reading on a single
text ( read the three texts one by one). However, it turned the other way around for the afterreading session in which those kinds of questions were being asked after Natalie and Linda
finished the reading of the three texts simultaneously. After the students have been tested with
the questions in two different ways, the finding was a group of students in during-reading session
scored high points of understanding completely the work area of a scientist while students in
after-reading session have the ideas about scientist, but they were lacking with in detail
information due to inability to retrieve the answers of the questions from the all three texts.
When I went through this research article in the beginning, I was quit surprised because I have
never know that this read-aloud technique is actually being implemented by educators yet, at the
same time I was so excited to review it as I believe this method is very important to ensure that
my teaching skill is effective when I become an educator in the future. Actually, the technique of
read-alouds, lead by teachers is not something rare or unfamiliar among us. This is because, our
cultures tend to have a story telling on legends and fairy tales to give advices on

good and bad things that were read by our parents and ancestors to the child. The same concept
here, but with an obvious different on the contents, in which the content of read-alouds is based
on formal knowledge specifically on Science concepts.
If I were asked for an opinion about this research, with an open heart I would agree and
support that this method should be implemented by Science educators in order to encourage
understanding and interest among the students to learn and explore Science. Commonly, the
perception of teaching Science for the primary school students is such a breathtaking task as the
concepts in Science are too scientific to be learned interestingly by the early school students
compared to other subjects such as Arts and Physcial Educations as they are simpler and
enjoyable. Moreover, children at their ages are playful and creative while they found it is
difficult for them to engage in the conceptual and factual of Science subject. Therefore, by
implementing read-alouds technique, I found that this type of misperception can be demolished.
As we can see, nowadays with the advance in technology, book publishers have come across an
initiative to produce an interactive, fun and real-life design in Science trade books in order to
raise the students interest and understanding on Science. Besides that, there are a lot of Science
comics in the market. Furthermore, as we can see on the finding of this research, understanding
level of a student consist of two types, whether they can understand based on individual text or
multiples texts at one time. But, both proved that read-alouds is actually effective in engaging
students with broad ideas and themes in Science.
The conclusion is, this read-alouds approach has succeed in increasing in-depth
understanding and interest in primary Sciences students as they become an active learners in
classrooms by asking questions, give suggestions and interpretations and relate the concepts with
their surrounding. I can also conclude that Science and Literacy are actually important to one
another and if they collaborate together, a result amazing will be produced. Students also can
develop high skills as they can master both parts of the brain, right brain for languages and
communication while the left one is for facts and concepts.

REFFERENCES
Atkinson, T. S., Matusevich, M. N., & Huber, L. (2009). Making science trade Book Choices for
Elementary Classroom. The Reading Teacher, 62(6), 484-497. doi: 10.1598/RT/62.6.3
Harlen, W,. & Horoyd, C. (1957). Primary teachers understanding concepts of science : impact
on confidence and teaching. International Journal of Science Education, 19(1), 93-105.
Retrieved from
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0950069970190107#.VSIgC_Am-So
Heisey, N,. & Kucan, L. (n.d.). Reading rocket. Introducing science concepts to primary students
through read alouds : Interaction & Multiple Text Make the Difference. Retrieved on March
11, 2015 from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/introducing-science-concepts-primarystudents-through-read-alouds-interactions-and-multiple
Palmer, R. G., & Stewart, S. A. (2003). Nonfiction trade book use in primary grades. The
reading teacher, 57(1), 38-48. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/20205314?
sid=21105896082111&uid=4&uid=3738672&uid=2