Despite over twenty years of educational reform, student achievement in science, along with reading comprehension, has remained a systemic problem for both regular and at-risk student populations. As the national school reform trend reduces time for science instruction in favor of reading across grades K-5, this research and development project, alternatively, is focused on accelerating both student science understanding and reading comprehension proficiency at the primary level (grades 1-2). The project is being implemented in diverse classrooms and addresses age-appropriate content from the areas of the physical, earth/environmental, and life sciences. The project is following a Cluster Randomized Trial (CRT) design with 16 experimental and 16 control schools and a total of 256 teachers/classrooms. Both groups are using the same District-adopted Reading/Language Arts program and are teaching the same District-adopted Science standards that are consistent with frameworks for state and national standards.
