Whether students are learning about types of clouds or the important role of simple machines, the information available in textbooks is never enough to adequately develop content knowledge. Fortunately, there is a wide variety of text available which teachers can incorporate into the science classroom to enhance learning. However, the question quickly becomes what types of text should teachers include in their science lessons, and do all types of text have value? Hybrid texts contain information but share the information through a narrative format (Donovan & Smolkin, 2002). Although hybrid texts are widely available on science topics, there is a continuing focus on the use of informational text rather than hybrid text in the classroom. This emphasis on informational text in elementary classroom lessons is due to a variety of reasons.
The Push for Informational Text
In recent years, teachers are being encouraged to use more informational texts in the classroom. Some of the pressure teachers feel regarding the emphasis on informational text may be due to the adoption of the Common Core Grade Level Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). Students as young as first grade are expected to be able to use various text features such as headings, glossaries, and the table of contents to find information in an informational text (CCSS-ELA LITERACY RI 1.5). The standards also call for an increasing amount of informational texts as students move up through the grade levels.
The educational field is also seeing a shift from content literacy to disciplinary literacy. The shift to a disciplinary literacy view emphasizes the importance of having students read, write, and think like historians, mathematicians, and scientists (Shanahan, 2014). That disciplinary literacy focus encourages informational text so students can experience the way a scientist explores the world or a historian learns about the past.
A concern regarding hybrid texts is that students are not really understanding the information when they engage with the text (Golke, Hagen, & Wittwer, 2019). In order to develop young children’s scientific knowledge, we need them to remember and understand the information presented within the story. When a goal of instruction is to broaden and deepen scientific understanding, we need text with which students can increase their knowledge on a scientific topic.
With the emphasis on informational text and the content and assessment demands placed on teachers to ensure topics are taught and learned at each grade level, often hybrid text may be seen as lacking a purpose with scientific learning. In fact, Hoffman, Collins, and Schickedanz (2015) question whether it is appropriate to use hybrid texts to strengthen scientific knowledge. However, elementary students may engage with the texts at home, in the library during free reading, or if they have extra time in the day. Let’s consider the advantages of teaching with hybrid texts.
While as adults we engage with informational text much more often than hybrid text, we want to think about what children often engage with in their world. What types of television shows, movies and books do young children view and read? A large number of these texts involve an element of fiction which pulls the viewers into the story, but there is information embedded in the text. Syd the Science Kid, Odd Squad, and Wild Kratts are just a few examples with which students grow up. Children already have familiarity with narrative text which includes information. Therefore, hybrid text is familiar to many of our students.
Teachers can use hybrid text to get students interested in informational texts. If students enjoy a text such as Butterfly Tree (Markle, 2011), a story about a mother and daughter off on an adventure which leads to them learning about Monarch butterflies, then their interest may lead to the suggestion of informational texts such Nic Bishop’s Butterflies (2011) which has a glossary and photographs. Often media specialists and teachers use student interest to recommend texts to young students. Using a hybrid text, which is a familiar format, may help create a bridge to informational texts they may enjoy.
We want young children to be able to approach various types of text and gain meaning from them. However, we also know that students cannot approach all texts in the same manner. If teachers never use hybrid text to develop scientific knowledge, they will never ensure that students know how to appropriately engage with hybrid text in order to gain information. Reading hybrid text and understanding its structure is a skill that students need to develop.
While clearly there are benefits to teaching with hybrid text, the next question is determining what can be done in the science classroom to ensure appropriate engagement with hybrid texts. How can teachers ensure that the students are getting the most and learning from the text? The following section suggests several ways elementary teachers can do just that.
Ask students how they engage with a story versus their science textbook or a science website. Explain hybrid text may appear to be a story, but there are important facts the author includes in the narrative that can help expand their understanding of a science topic. Use hybrid texts as an opportunity to talk about stance. Readers take different stances when they engage with text. They either seek to become part of the story experience, aesthetically, or they engage efferently, to take away information (Rosenblatt, 1994). The ability to discuss stance and to talk about the differences between how readers engage with various texts is an important benefit of incorporating hybrid texts into the science classroom (Bintz & Ciecierski, 2017).
“Which Is It?” Activity
Encourage students to compare and contrast hybrid, informational texts, and even fictional texts. Do very young students know if a text is hybrid? Divide the class into small groups. Provide each group of students with four or five texts. Ask them to sort the texts into three piles, fiction, hybrid, and informational. Have them put a sticky note on the text piles to label them. After students are done, have them share the books and which ones were in which piles. How did they decide whether or not a text was hybrid or informational? How did they know if a text was fictional or hybrid? Older students may even find their own texts to categorize.
Ask students to work in pairs to find information in a hybrid text on a scientific topic they are studying. Take notes on a chart of scientific information that they find in the texts. With younger students, the text could be read to the class and the entire class can contribute ideas. Talk about what students are able to learn from the text and then look at informational texts that might expand that knowledge on concepts discussed in the hybrid text.
As the class studies a scientific topic or unit, ask students to think about how they might incorporate the information into a hybrid text. What would the title be? What would the story line be about? Ask them to design a dust jacket. On the inside front flap, they can include a brief synopsis of the hybrid text that will grab a reader’s attention so they want to read the text, and on the inside of the back flap of the jacket they can include information about the author. Does the author have any credentials specific to the topic or use any websites for information that might be included? On the back cover, students may list informational texts that tie to the content of this hybrid text. Students can even present a one-minute sales pitch for their text. This activity is another way to get students thinking about various texts and how hybrid texts differ from informational texts.
Recent research examining hundreds of award-winning science trade books questions if any one type of text is unsuitable for science (May, Crip, Bingham, Schwartz, Pickens, Woodbridge, 2019). However, research also shows that children will not be able to learn scientific concepts without informational texts (Pappas, 2006). While informational texts in science are a necessity so that students become familiar with the text structure of texts often used by scientists, expand their knowledge, and build precise scientific vocabulary, there is a place for hybrid texts in the classroom. When teaching science, hybrid texts can supplement the use of informational texts to develop scientific understanding.
Through the use of hybrid texts, students will better understand how texts vary, and they will build text flexibility so that they can appropriately approach and gain information from diverse texts they encounter. The question is not if hybrid texts should play a role in the elementary science classroom but rather how educators can use both hybrid and informational texts to engage students in learning about the world around them.
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Jennifer Altieri
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