18009200

Apparently the high school Chemistry book I will be doing my student teaching from is at a 16th grade reading level. Our professor told us the formula we use does over estimate the reading level of Science textbooks, but it still goes to show how poorly our science texts are written. I'll knock the grade level off by a few and say that the textbook is meant for high school seniors or college freshman. Now imagine a class of mostly 11th graders trying to read a book meant for students thinking and reading on a college level. Of course the reading is going to be frustrating. In the two sections of 200 words that I picked out to use (one on the atom and the other on solubility) there were an average of 5-6 bold words. This means that students are expected to learn these words by sifting through the text. If I had to read a high school English book like this, not one of my reading would have been done. And I already did not read that much. I understand why some students would be so frustrated with high school Science, especially if they do not have the same passion I had growing up.