Mary has just completed a grade two content
unit on mammals. When asked if a mouse is a mammal,
she replies, 'no, because it eats cheese.' Henry
reports that “a walking stick is not a
mammal because it is a walking stick.”
When Joe is asked if a bat is a mammal, he replies,
'yes, because it eats bugs, while he replies
that a salamander is not a mammal because, 'it
is a fly eater'. These examples point to confusions
in young learners understanding of the organizing
concepts that underlay scientific classification
as mediated through the language of the science
text and the questions. It seems that these students
cannot apply the essential concepts of their
learning. Their responses, clouded with literalism,
spurious connections, and contradictions, reveal
their attempts to create meaningful thought categories
by bridging the known and the unknown.
NAEP scores persistently reveal gaps at grades
4, 8, and 12 in basic understanding of expository
texts and a huge failing in students to master
higher level thinking evidenced in the abilities
to synthesize findings and solve problems with
information from expository texts. Dismissing
the results as indications of reading problems
misses the complexity of issues obscured by the
test scores. Contextualizing and grasping the
problems, issues, and contradictions associated
with science learning and instruction are prerequisites
to addressing the content performance gap evident
from grades 4 through 12.
While it is tempting to interpret these gaps
in knowledge as reading comprehension problems,
the real issue centers on cognitive development
and expression and language as the motors of
knowledge expansion and the role of the teacher
in facilitating knowledge making. A project done
over the last three years in a rural school in
West Virginia has examined the scientific thinking
and expression of knowledge of grade two students.
This paper examines four questions:
1. Do grade two children have the cognitive tools
necessary for scientific thinking?
2. What is the relationship of language to cognitive
development and expression of knowledge?
3. If linguistic constructs in texts and discourse
inhibit knowledge making and expression, are
there ways around these barriers that will enable
children to show what they know?
4. What is the role of the teacher in knowledge
making learning environments?