Exploring young English language learners' multimodal academic communication of scientific ideas

This qualitative study explored nine young English language learners' (ELLs') communication of scientific ideas in illustrated information books that they created at the end of an instructional unit on temperate forests in the context of year-long, integrated science and literacy instruction. The study centers on four 1st-graders' and five 3rd-graders' books on topics of their choice and conversations with researchers. It identifies how these ELLs communicated scientific ideas through three modes (text, picture, and conversation) and the various types of reasoning and informing functions realized, the ways in which ELLs reasoned across ideas, and how various functions were associated with various modes.;The study was informed by several theoretical frameworks on second language acquisition, sociocultural approaches to language development, multimodality, and scientific reasoning. Analysis of data (children's books and transcripts of conversations on their books) proceeded as follows: identification of ideas expressed in various modes; coding of function(s) realized in each idea; coding of type(s) of reasoning across ideas; identifying patterns across all nine ELLs; and creating in-depth vignettes of four ELLs.