Teaching “Nutrients Inside Seeds” through Science Textbook Reading

—Experiments as a Tool for Text Interpretation and Understanding—

Abstract

The substance of science is text, and the science text that is most familiar to children is the science textbook. Therefore, reading comprehension of science textbooks is an important element in children’s science learning activities (Tonishi, 2021). This is a practical study that attempted to teach “Nutrient Content of Seeds” to fifth grade elementary school children through reading comprehension of science textbooks. In this practice, a teaching method for text interpretation was introduced, in which the text is read three times, known as SANDOKUHOU (Ishiyama, 1973). The children were able to read texts, understand theories and experimental methods, formulate experimental hypotheses, and predict outcomes. Setting an experimental hypothesis made it possible to conduct meaningful experiments. Furthermore, the agreement between the predictions and the actual results convinced the children that the experiment was successful. The success of the experiment allowed the children to believe in the theory. Because a theory is one of the propositions that make up a text, forming a commitment to this proposition helps children understand the text. That is, the experiment is part of the text and serves as a means for the learner to interpret the text. By reading their science textbooks, the children were able to understand that plants (of the legume family) use the starch in their cotyledons to germinate. It was confirmed that this experiment deepened children’s understanding of the text.