To provide teacher candidates with opportunities that enable them to evaluate the results of learning and teaching as they complete their coursework, the teacher education program at a southeastern university has candidates enroll in four methods courses that require them to spend six weeks of the semester in assigned elementary and middle level classrooms. During this period candidates work with classroom teachers to plan and implement lessons with students in the semester prior to the teaching internship (student teaching).

This study examined the science achievement of English Learners as measured by three performance assessments embedded within inquiry-based units of instruction at the fifth grade level. Participants in a multi-district, NSF-funded science education reform effort developed the assessments and their associated rubrics.

This article highlights the complementary cognitive processes found in writing to communicate and communicating in science. Writing in science is important for enabling students to clarify observed scientific phenomena, along with assisting them to construct new scientific knowledge from inquiry experiences. Maximizing teachers' resources, experience, and knowledge is necessary to support the intersection of instructional practices in writing and science.

Comprehension of science text is notoriously difficult for many secondary students. One of the reasons some readers get lost in expository text may be due to a limited ability to navigate complex sentence structures.

In many school settings, language arts has become the driving force of curriculum and instruction. This often occurs at the expense of other subjects, such as science. The literature suggests reasons why science is not taught and why it must be taught in the primary grades. It also notes that when science is taught in the primary grades, the emphasis is on the life sciences rather than the physical sciences. This suggests that it is important to teach the physical sciences specifically. For my study, I examined methods teachers might employ to teach science effectively in the primary grades.

Traditionally the focus of elementary education has been on language arts instruction. The problem comes in when the science program is left by the wayside. Fitch and Fisher (1979) performed a survey in the Illinois area on what the schools were teaching. They concluded that science teaching lagged behind other subjects in a majority of schools in the Illinois area. Part of these findings can be attributed to limited teacher science knowledge, time, inadequate equipment and textbooks.