30 Read Alouds to Integrate Science, Social Studies, and Literacy Skills

After an exhausting weekend of being chauffeur, family photographer, and social event coordinator for my own kids, I stood in the middle of the children’s section at a major bookseller hoping to find a quick and easy solution for the modeled reading section of my pollution lesson for Monday.   I needed a book that introduced pollution. With this curriculum crunch we’re in, it needed to be down and dirty with the easy details, too…or so I thought as I stood half-heartedly staring at the search menu on the store’s computer. My search for pollution books turned up two (seriously only two at this major retailer): The Berenstain Bears Don’t Pollute (Anymore) and The Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge.  Since I wasn’t eager to cover the global warming debate, it left one lazy option: The Berenstain Bears.

Fortunately, for my students’ sake, I texted my colleague, Meagan, and ran that clunker of an idea by her.  I could justify it.  Every kid should experience the Berenstain Bears, and the book would quickly teach the problem and solutions of pollution.  But Meagan texted back, “Use the Chris Van Allsburg book…the one where he’s in the bed seeing the way the earth is changing. No bears, please!”  She was referring to Just a Dream, Allsburg’s book about a young boy that dreams of a future negatively impacted by pollution.  I happily picked the book up from her classroom before school started the next day.  That was a quick and easy no-brainer.

*Every teacher needs a Meagan in your life to shake you back to your senses and hold you to high standards!

Matching our science and social studies content to a modeled read aloud every single day for every single lesson is challenging. But the literacy rewards are off the charts when we take the time to make it happen.  I ended up using Just a Dream for our modeled reading on Monday.  I focused on the literacy reading standard CCGPSRL.3 on character traits.  We charted the change in perspective of Walter, the main character, throughout the story.  I pulled in our word study on shades of meaning, and the word choice on our chart was outstanding…unreliable, cantankerous, sketchy, shady, changing to dependable, trustworthy, and compassionate.  Yep!  Third graders used those words on their own.  We followed it up with a shared reading on the types of pollution.  Students then completed a partner task sorting the events in Just a Dream into the four categories of pollution.  It was way better than a trip down memory lane with Brother and Sister Bear.

We all need support finding modeled reading selections that promote critical thinking skills and integrate science and social studies content.  Below, you’ll find 30 fantastic science and social studies themed books that I’ve used in my classrooms during Modeled Reading:

Habitats/Ecosystems/Pollution

Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg	Pollution	Character Traits/ Change in Perspective
Flute’s Journey by Lynn Cherry	Migration	Text Structure: Sequence/Temporal Words
About Raptors: A Guide for Children By Cathryn Sill	Animal Traits	Text Structure Organization: Description
Teeth By Sneed B Collard	Adaptations	Text Structure: Compare & Contrast
Aliens from Earth: When Animals and Plants Invade Other Ecosystems  By Mary Batten	How plants and animals affect ecosystems/ Interdependence	Text Structure Organization: Cause and Effect
When the Wolves Returned: Restoring Nature's Balance in Yellowstone By Dorothy Hinshaw Patent	Human Impact on Ecosystems / Interdependence	Text Structure Organization: Problem and Solution
The Great Kapok Tree by Lynn Cherry	Human Impact on Ecosystems / Interdependence	Main Idea and Details / Inference / Plot & Conflict: Somebody, Wanted, But, So / Figurative Language
A River Ran Wild: An Environmental History by Lynn Cherry	Natural Resources /Pollution/Consumers & Producers	Text Structure: Cause & Effect Relationships / Using Illustrations & Maps to aid Comprehension
Who Is  Jane Goodall? by Roberta Edwards	Habitats	Novel Study – Multiple Literacy Standards / Biography
Hoot by Carl Hiaasen	Human Impact on Ecosystems	Novel Study – Multiple Literacy standards / Fact & Opinion / Theme / Figurative Language

Fossils/Rocks and Soils

National Geographic Kids Ultimate Dinopedia	Fossils	Text Features
Dinosaur Named Sue: The World's Most Complete T. Rex  By Relf, Pat	Fossils	Text Features
Magic School Bus Inside the Earth	Rocks and Minerals	Monitoring Comprehension-  think marks, fix-up strategies, jotting thinking in the margin or on post-its, connections
Dirt: The Scoop on Soil by Natalie Rosinky	Soil	Monitoring Comprehension-  think marks, fix-up strategies, jotting thinking in the margin or on post-its, connections

Economics/Resources

The Lemonade War By Jacqueline Davies	Economic Concepts – excellent for teaching economic vocabulary	Monitoring our comprehension through questioning/Main Idea/ Inferencing/Context Clues
Pancakes, Pancakes! By Eric Carle	Resources / Production	Sequencing

Colonial America/Democracy/American Revolution

Blood on the River By Elisa Carbone  (4th grade +)	Colonial America	Novel Study – Multiple Literacy standards / figurative language/ theme/ character traits and change
Homespun Sarah By Verla Kay	Colonial America	Poetry – rhythm & rhyme / Illustrations support comprehension
Tattered Sails By Verla Kay	Colonial America	Poetry – rhythm & rhyme / Illustrations support comprehension
You Wouldn't Want to Be an American Colonist!: A Settlement You'd Rather Not Start  by David Salariya	Colonial America	Visualizing
If You Lived In Colonial Times  by Ann McGovern	Colonial America	Visualizing
Katie's Trunk by Ann Turner	Revolutionary War	1st person POV, text dependent questioning, figurative language, shades of meaning of words
George vs. George: The American Revolution As Seen from Both Sides by Rosalyn Schanzer (4th Grade+)	Revolutionary War	Text Structure: Compare & Contrast / 1st Hand Accounts / Quotes /
Revolutionary War on Wednesday by Mary Pope Osborn (2nd and early 3rd Grade)	Revolutionary War	Narrative Elements
Redcoats and Petticoats by K. Kirkpatrick and R. Himmler	Revolutionary War	Text Structure: Compare & Contrast / Reading for Detail & Evidence
Buttons for General Washington by Peter Roop	Revolutionary War	Content Vocabulary, Context Clues, Inference
And then What Happened Paul Revere? by Jeanne Fritz	Revolutionary War	Sequencing, Visualizing
Shh! We’re Writing the Constitution by: Jeanne Fritz and and Tomie dePaola	Constitution/Branches of Government	Sequencing historical events/ visualizing /opposing viewpoints/ Content Vocabulary

Water Cycle/Weather

I Survived Hurricane Katrina by Lauren Tarshis	Weather	Novel Study – Multiple Literacy standards / flashback / figurative language / historical events
Hurricanes! by Gail Gibbons	Weather	Text Features /Content Vocabulary/ Main Idea and Details

Integrating Literacy Into Science & Social Studies

Literacy in the 45-60 Minute Science & Social Studies Block

PowerPoint from Professional Development Session at Hillside ES

That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. ~ Steve Jobs

Anyone that knows me well would probably laugh at the idea that I'm promoting simplicity.  Give me a project and I can always come up with one more idea, the pièce de résistance, that usually results in someone's to-do list (usually my husband's or girl scout co-leader's list) getting a little longer. But, when it comes to integrating literacy throughout the elementary day, I'm finding that simplicity, clear focus, and consistency quickly zero in on the literacy gaps that our students are experiencing in non-fiction reading.

So, to keep this simple, I've begun using a consistent sequence of events in my Science and Social Studies lessons, and each lesson begins and ends with an over-arching reading essential question.  Here's the plan:

Part 1: The Big Idea

Develop a "big idea" reading focus that you will use for several weeks. My team is referring to Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement by Harvey and Goudvis. With this resource, there's no reason for us to reinvent the wheel.  This book has developed research-based reading strategies into quality lessons that can be used throughout the elementary curriculum.  Get the book and hug it!  It's your new best friend.

My 3rd grade team is currently working from Chapter 6: Monitoring Your Inner Reading Conversation, and we are constantly tying our content lesson back to this essential question: How do I monitor my inner reading conversation? 

Part 2: Daily Teaching Sequence

All of my Science or Social Studies lesson follow a sequence of modeled reading, shared reading with building of content anchor charts and note-taking, Active Engagement link (experiments or content center rotations), and a closing that checks for understanding.  Below you'll find a sample lesson that I took pictures of that demonstrate the sequence.

Reading Mini-Lesson/Review Strategy

With each new reading strategy, I take the first 10-15 minutes of the content block to build an anchor chart with the students. We will refer back to the chart throughout the next 5-10 days that the "big idea" will be incorporated into the lessons.  After the first day, though, I simply do a quick "check for understanding" of the essential question and anchor chart.

(Time for Review of Strategy: 1 minute).

Modeled Reading

This is the time that I read aloud to the whole class from a purposefully selected text that supports our Science or Social Studies curriculum.  I always use an authentic text, such as picture book, informational book, or novel related to the content. My 3rd grade class was studying our Rocks and Minerals unit, so I choose the book below.  You can see that it's not an award winner, but it served its purpose for the strategy, CCGPS standard (using text evidence) and anchor chart.  It had funny, surprising, important, and confusing parts, AND it directly reinforced my content standards on rocks.

As I read, I stopped on each page and did the following think-aloud that matched my reading strategy anchor chart:

What was the most important part of the text?

I’m confused about…

The surprising part is…

I wonder…

This is my favorite part because…

I then had the students turn and talk to each other using the same language.  The turn and talk immediately gave me feedback that my students could NOT pick out the most important parts of the text.  This quick informal assessment told me what reading gap I needed to fill: understanding that text features such as titles, subheadings, sidebars and bolded words often highlight the most important parts of the text. It also told me that I needed to de-emphasize the LOL parts and generalized text connections.  Every child wanted to tell me that they had found a rock at some point in his/her life, but very few were prepared to do the mental work of connecting the prime information in the text to rocks in their world. Oh my goodness!

(Time for Modeled Reading: 10 minutes ~ I only read a few pages a day.  Picture books usually last me 3-5 days, and novels last 2-3 weeks).

Shared Reading

Following the modeled reading, students move into Shared Reading. It’s time for the students to apply the strategy modeled in the read aloud onto an unleveled authentic text.  This is a time of High Teacher support in the Gradual Release model. I coordinate buddy reading, cooperative group work, and side-by-side teacher support to scaffold the text.  Students should not be working independently during this time.  They should be talking to each other A LOT!  On topic…of course!

In the case of my sample lesson, students were paired in buddies and given post it notes.  Two pages from the science text book were assigned to the buddy readers.  The pair took turns reading the text together.  (I taught my expectations for Buddy Reading before this lesson, but I referred back to may anchor chart).

Then, they worked together to code the text using post-its identifying important, confusing, and surprising parts of the text.  

Once students had enough time to work with the text, we returned to our seats (my students buddy read in nooks throughout the room).  We used the post-its to drive our content conversation and reinforced what important information looked and sounded like. Again, it was an easy way to check for understanding of both the reading strategy and content standards.  It quickly identified many misconceptions of both!

Then, the students and I built an anchor chart of the science content information together.  We used the language of the strategy ("an important part we should add... a surprising part we should include") and our CCGPS standard on using text evidence to answer questions ("according to the text...")  The students recorded the chart in their science journals.

(Time for shared reading: 15-20 minutes)

Link: Active Engagement with the Science Content

In the case of the sample lesson I've presented, my class then moved into a hands-on lab.  The students worked in cooperative groups to identify characteristics of each of the 3 types of rocks.  Students recorded their findings on a graphic organizer that was pasted into the science journals.

(Time for Lab: 20 minutes)

As the year progresses, I will be introducing my own adapted version of the Science/SS Weekly 5 during this time.  I found the idea from another blogging teacher, Ariane Huddleston, who runs the Science Penguin blog.  Check it out here.  I will use this time for science or social studies rotations related to experiments, content vocabulary, research projects, performance tasks, and content-related task card review.  As my students work, I'll be available to pull small groups of students that need additional work with the Science or Social Studies content and literacy strategy. 

Lesson Closing

I always save 5 minutes for my class to return to a whole-group setting so that we can close out the lesson.  We return to both our content standard essential question and our literacy over-arching question.  We first answer how the reading strategy helped us understand the text, and then we do a final short response to the content EQ.  Sometimes, students respond through journal writing or a turn and talk to an elbow partner.  Other times students respond by showing me five fingers if they are confident in their understanding, four fingers if they feel ok but need more time with the material, and three fingers if we need to meet the next day to review. My favorite way for students to respond is through my Twitter board.  It's a "Ticket Out the Door" model where students write a response on a post-it and tweet it on the class Twitter board.  My goal is that ultimately we will tweet our responses on the real Twitter!

Time for Closing (5 minutes)

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I think as Steve Jobs said, "You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains."  Making the shift towards seeing your elementary school day as driven by literacy requires hard work and some periods of trial and error.  But, in the end, the work is transformative. I read recently that modern scientists spend 80% of their day reading and writing research. If we're going to prepare our students to be 21st century leaders and learners, we have to recognize that shifts in our teaching must happen.  

P.S.  Check out the PowerPoint for more Shared Reading ideas!