Teaching Science & Reading Together Yields Double Benefits for Learning
This month marks the five-year anniversary of the World Health Organization's declaration that COVID-19 was a pandemic. That announcement shuttered school buildings and launched millions of students into remote learning. While the immediate health crisis is over, the long-term impact on students is not: The latest Nation's Report Card underscores that academic recovery remains elusive, with many students needing months of additional instructional time to close the pandemic achievement gap. One of the most troubling areas is reading.
Despite hopes for a rebound, students' reading progress remains stalled, with academic growth in 2023-24 again falling short of pre-pandemic trends. The gap between pre- and post-COVID reading scores has widened by 36%, and at the current pace, the average student needs nearly five more months of learning to catch up. The struggle is even greater for historically marginalized students, who remain the furthest behind, making it clear that pandemic recovery has a long way to go.
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Science achievement has also suffered, with uneven recovery across grade levels. While students in grades 3 through 5 have largely returned to pre-pandemic performance, middle schoolers are still struggling — particularly eighth graders, who remain more than three months behind. The setbacks are especially pronounced for Hispanic and Black students, highlighting persistent gaps that could have long-term consequences for STEM readiness. Without targeted support, these disparities may continue to widen, limiting opportunities for students already most at risk of being left behind.
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Education leaders have limited avenues for addressing these challenges, especially now that federal recovery funding has expired. One underutilized approach is the integration of literacy and science instruction in elementary schools, which creates a mutually reinforcing learning experience. Students read, write and discuss real-world scientific phenomena while building background knowledge, strengthening their ability to understand complex text and information, and engaging in meaningful conversations — all factors in literacy success. Plus, integration means literacy and science instruction don't have to compete with each other on the school schedule.
Our new report dug into the research on the benefits of blending these two subjects in elementary school and found that first- and second-graders who received integrated literacy and science instruction retained more reading skills over the summer and performed better, by nearly 8 percentage points, on science-related reading tasks than their peers who did not. By building knowledge through thematic lessons and extensive reading of a broad range of informational texts on various topics, this approach helped students transfer what they learned to new reading challenges.
Similarly, third through fifth graders participated in a three-year classroom study where instruction in reading and writing comprehension were woven into science lessons. The students read scientific texts, analyzed data, discussed key ideas and wrote about their findings, strengthening both their literacy and science skills. By the end of fifth grade, students in the study scored more than a full grade higher in science and more than a half-grade higher in reading on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills than their peers in traditional classrooms. These gains persisted into middle school, with students in grades 6 and 7 continuing to show higher achievement in both subjects.
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Another study focused on professional development to help preK-3 teachers integrate science, reading and math into daily instruction. In these classrooms, students explored scientific concepts through books, engaged in hands-on investigations and applied math to interpret their findings. As a result, they scored higher on early literacy, reading and math assessments than those whose teachers did not receive the training. Notably, students whose teachers participated in the professional development demonstrated reading achievement levels equivalent to an extra half-year of instruction compared with their peers.
To do integration well, four components needed to be present:
Engaging students with real-world phenomena that spark curiosity and drive deeper learning. When using everyday occurrences to anchor science instruction, students begin to see science all around them.
Strengthening academic vocabulary by immersing students in the specialized language of science to enhance their reading and writing skills.
Supporting sustained and structured learning with science instruction that builds over time, with each lesson connecting to the next to help students develop understanding.
Encouraging scientific discourse that involves students in planning investigations, making hypotheses and debating evidence to deepen their understanding of science concepts while reinforcing literacy skills.
Implementing integration successfully means schools must allow time for collaboration among literacy instructors, science teachers and school librarians. It may also mean rethinking the master schedule, including the planning time needed. School leaders also need to acquire high-quality, phenomenon-based science materials, like science journals and texts, and ensure students have access. For schools with a limited budget, it might be useful to partner with a public library or identify free materials online. Lastly, schools must invest in sustained professional learning, including how to incorporate real-world science phenomena, leverage academic vocabulary, build structured instructional plans and sequences, and foster coordination between subjects to engage students.
To help educators bring these components to life in the classroom, we developed a Practitioner's Guide that provides concrete strategies, lesson ideas and examples of integrated instruction in action. The guide illustrates how teachers can engage students with real-world phenomena, build academic vocabulary, support structured learning and foster scientific discourse — all while strengthening literacy skills.
The challenge of unfinished learning remains urgent. Everyone from teachers to superintendents to education researchers must rethink approaches to how students learn and what can drive greater academic growth. Integration of literacy and science instruction in elementary schools is one untapped approach for driving greater student outcomes. Doing both together can drive greater academic growth than either subject can do alone.
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