Reading and writing to learn science: Achieving scientific literacy

Abstract A key step in helping students to achieve scientific literacy is to ensure that each school's curriculum supports students' efforts to learn science meaningfully. Educational researchers play a vital role in this step by providing teachers, teacher educators, administrators, and policy makers with information about the creation of a curriculum that supports scientific literacy. In a scientific literacy curriculum, reading and writing can serve as dynamic vehicles for learning science meaningfully. The task of educational researchers is to show how reading and writing can be used most effectively to support science learning. Much of what is done now in schools is based on teacher intuition—good intuition—but intuition nonetheless. What is needed is school‐based research to validate and build upon these intuitions. This article is intended to stimulate research on reading and writing to learn science.