Martha L. Smith

TL;DR: In this paper, a framework of narrative elements and characteristics of narrative explanations is developed and two possible examples of narrative explanation are presented and examined in light of the framework, bringing to light various conceptual and empirical questions related to the examples and to the larger issue of the use of examples like them in science instruction.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe a comprehensive set of studies designed to assess the potential for commercial reading programs to teach reading in science, focusing on the proportion of selections in the programs that contain science and the amount of science that is in those selections, on the genres in which the science is portrayed, on topics and topics of science covered, on accuracy of the scientific content, on text features used to communicate the science, and on the instructional strategies and assessment techniques recommended.

TL;DR: This paper studied the differences between literature in children's trade books and the literature in commercial elementary language arts reading programs used in Canada and found that the two are not equivalent in the reading experiences they provide for children.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify and quantify the assessment techniques suggested for the selections that contain scientific content, to show how the assessments differ by grade, evaluate the nature and quality of the assessments, and examine the extent to which the assessments help foster scientific literacy.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the use of children's literature in three widely used commercially published and literature-based reading programs for grades 1 to 6 and found that on average 37% of the literature selections had been previously published, with a range by publisher of 4% to 55%.