“The Seesaw Is a Machine That Goes Up and Down”: Young Children's Narrative Responses to Science-Related Informational Text

Research Findings: We report on an assessment developed to document young children's narrative production after listening to short segments of science-related informational text (SciT) on life science, earth and space, and simple machines. We examine differences between kindergarten boys (n = 39) and girls (n = 29) on several indices of narrative production as well as on children's interest and reported use of SciT at home and school. We obtained evidence that young children understand and enjoy SciT. After a single reading of the text by an adult, children produced accurate paraphrases of the texts. We found no differences between girls and boys on any measure of meaning making or interest across all SciT topics. Children's scores were highest for the two life science texts and lowest for the earth and space texts. The SciT genre also appealed to the children; more than half said they would like to read similar books. However, opportunities for reading this genre at home or school differed between the sexes. Practice or Policy: Our results support the arguments that SciT is appropriate for children in the early grades and that children are likely to benefit from SciT with respect to both their reading and science learning.