Trade Books to the Rescue! Combating Misinformation with Science and Literacy

One strategy for developing science literacy and scientific literacy in young children is through published trade books. To better understand how science literacy and scientific literacy may be represented in elementary classrooms, we investigated children's books that explore science concepts. Specifically, we examined high-quality science trade books that children are likely to encounter in school to see if they could be used to support science literacy and scientific literacy; skills inherent in these types of literacies can arm our students to combat misinformation. Our findings demonstrate that books are not uniform in quality. Consistent with existing research, and in light of our findings, we make the recommendations to support teachers in elevating science trade books from simply serving as opportunities for reading in science to supporting science literacy and scientific literacy.