Boreal Ecology Article Review: Helping Ecology Students to Read: The Use of Reading Reports

This is a review for the article, “Helping Ecology Students to Read: The Use of Reading Reports."

The senior author, Eugenia Etkina, is an Assistant Professor of science education in the Department of Learning and Teaching, Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

As the years have progressed, students have shown reduced reading ability. The increased usage of multimedia (television, computer, video games, etc) may have lead students to adapt to a more visual form of learning.

The authors of this article have conducted surveys and studies in order to find and correct this problem. The paper describes the entire process of the conducted study, and shows that the current generation lacks ability to read critically.

 The article is presented in a way that is easy to understand and learn from; it may be highly beneficial to the readers since it shows some steps to improve studying and reading methods.

This reading has two important uses. There will be many assigned readings for those majoring in science. Sometimes, the pages and the amount of reading assignmed may be overwhelming. Thus, one importance of the reading is simply for some reading practice and getting used to the amount of work. Second, there is much valuable information in this article; thus it may be used to elevate the education quality for students in this generation.   The subjects in the reading are dealing with Ecology students; if one is studying in the field of Ecology, he/she can relate them.

I believe this reading can improve students’ reading abilities, and it can also show students that critical reading skills are an important aspect of learning. Some of the teaching improvement techniques can be incorporated into some science classes.

Source Cited:

“Helping Ecology Students to Read: The Use of Reading Reports,” Etkina, Eugenia, and David Ehrenfeld., BioScience 50: 602-608, 2000.