Reading science: Using systemic functional linguistics to support critical language awareness

•Elementary teachers and children explored author perspective in science text.•Interpersonal meaning is presented in the language of science in distinctive ways.•Talk about authors’ language choices revealed authors in dialog with readers.•Development of critical language awareness (CLA) can begin at an early age.

In this article we report on initial steps in a potential pathway into developing critical language awareness in teachers and young children by introducing the notion of “author attitude” in science texts. We report on activities that helped teachers and students recognize that informational texts do, in fact, present authors’ attitudes and perspectives, that this is accomplished through language choices, and that those choices put readers in dialog with an author, allowing readers to bring their own judgments to what they read. As we report on the reactions of elementary teachers and students and on their participation in activities exploring author attitude, we highlight lessons we learned that may inform others who are interested in supporting critical language awareness in science reading.