In our Experience Science A-Z series, we show you what it’s like to use Science A-Z to teach science through reading and reading through science. In Part 3, you get to see how a student reads a FOCUS Book to dig deeper into a high-interest STEM topic. Then, we put you in the shoes of a teacher evaluating individual student quiz scores and overall class progress.
Independent Reading
After the hands-on Process Activity, Sarah goes home excited to read more about machines in her assigned FOCUS Book, The Mole Machine. Because she still has to develop certain reading comprehension skills, you have assigned her a Low level book to read online.
Sarah opens up the “Listen” version and pays close attention to vocabulary words and pronunciation as she follows along with the recording.
Then, Sarah reads on her own. She uses the drawing tools to highlight key words and stamp sentences that contain main ideas. These tools have allowed her to consider both the eBook and Process Activity resource as she is able to document what she has learned so far from multiple resource types.
After reading the book, Sarah takes an eQuiz, that asks her questions related to main idea and details and encourages her to make inferences based on text evidence.
Finally, Sarah reads over the “Be an Engineer” section in the back of the book, which previews the next day’s experiment: creating a tunnel. She looks forward to working with clay in class and designing a tunnel.
Assessment and Reporting
Later in the evening, you open up your laptop and go to the Science A-Z website to see what your students read and their eQuiz scores. Under “Student Activity,” you see that all but two students read their assigned FOCUS Books.
Since you know that Sarah is one of your reluctant readers, you go to her profile and click on Activity to see how she did on the eQuiz. Because each question is tagged with a particular question type and comprehension skill, you can see what skills she’s struggling with. After clicking “Review” on her quiz report, you see she missed an inferential question and a question related to interpreting visual devices. You make a note to coach her through the next FOCUS Book reading by paying closer attention to these skills.
You also look at the overall class Skill Report and see that 93% of students are doing great with Comparison and Contrast, as well as Interpreting Visual Devices, but only 76% are mastering Cause and Effect. You type “cause and effect” into the Search bar on Science A-Z and find a video on oil spills that has great examples of the effects of water movement and the changes it causes on land. You decide to include this video into a lesson later in the week to give students a visual example of cause and effect.
After checking on your students’ progress and finding materials that can address students’ skill gaps, you close your laptop to end another successful day with Science A-Z.
