Heisey, N. & Kucan, L. (2010). Introducing science concepts to primary students through read alouds: Interactions and multiple texts make the difference. The Reading Teacher, 63(8), 666-676.
This study compared two ways of approaching read-alouds of science-themed texts with first and second graders. One group engaged in discussion during reading; the other group discussed after reading. On some outcomes there were no differences, but on others the "during reading" group seemed to do better. Specifically, they did better at seeing overall themes (there were three related books) and at giving "richer" responses.
The things that bother me here all relate to methodology. I like the idea of using trade books to build science concepts. I like the higher-level discussion prompts used here. I like the idea of emphasizing connections across texts. My concerns are with the assessment tasks used to generate evidence, especially when used with such young children. They seemed a bit too test-like, and were too unscaffolded to be realistic. In "real" discussions, the group dynamic provides a scaffold. That was absent in these assessments.
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