Engaging struggling readers and writers in authentic scienceliteracy learning

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Engaging struggling readers and writers in
authentic science/literacy learning getting
results

• Laura Caron
• Kim Gilbert
• Harris School
• Springfield, MA
• January 31, 2008

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Contributions of Literacy to ScienceDeepening
Scientific Understandings

• reading and writing about science helps
  develop and reinforce desired science concepts.
• The inquiry process can be transferred to
  students individual exploration through reading
  trade books and magazines. Their wondering and
  questioning can continue to stimulate deeper,
  richer understandings.
• Students learn science better when they write
  about what they are thinking. The act of writing
  forces them to synthesize new ideas with prior
  knowledge and to reflect on what they dont know
  as they organize their thoughts.
• 
  - McKee Ogle (2005)

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Contributions of Science to LiteracyStudent
Motivation

• when interesting science trade books and
  magazines are available, both boys and girls lose
  themselves in the pictures and texts and dont
  want to stop reading when independent reading
  time is over.
• Reading in scientific materials is motivating
  for many students. In fact, a sizeable proportion
  of young readers prefer to read informational
  materials, especially about the real world.
• -McKee Ogle (2005)

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Contributions of Science to LiteracyLiteracy
Skills

• the active study of science helps children
  develop logical thinking, language, and reading
  competencies.
• As students gain experience in reading and
  science, they begin to form metacognitive
  practices, allowing them to independently
  generate their own questions to explore their own
  ideas and concepts.
• -
  McKee Ogle (2005)

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The Reciprocal Process

• there is a growing body of evidence that
  indicates a strong relationship between inquiry
  based science instruction and improved
  achievement not only in science, but also in
  reading, language arts, and mathematics. An
  extensive examination of this body of evidence
  indicates that there is a strong connection
  between science and literacy. Each discipline
  reinforces the other discipline in a reciprocal
  process.
• - Klentschy Molina-De
  La Torre (2004)

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Academic Language

• Scientific literacy means that a person can ask,
  find, or determine answers to questions derived
  from curiosity about everyday experiences. It
  means that a person has the ability to describe,
  explain, and predict natural phenomena.
  Scientific literacy entails being able to read
  with understanding articles about science in the
  popular press and to engage in social
  conversations about the validity of the
  conclusions.
• - National Science Education Standards (NSES)
  (1996)

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The Insect Unit (Fall 2006)

• School Context
• School Improvement Plan (SIP) All students (K-5)
  develop and demonstrate their scientific
  understanding, and express and deepen these
  understandings through reading, writing and
  authentic accountable talk.
• March 2006 Cornerstone Lesson Study Tsunami
  Unit

• Classroom Context
• 2nd grade literacy block
• 14 struggling students 5 ELLs (Somali), 9
  at-risk readers/writers (few have been retained,
  few are former ELLs or live in a household where
  English is not spoken)
• 2 teachers Laura Caron and Kim Gilbert (ELL)

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UBD Essential Science Questions Enduring
Understandings

• What are insects?
• How do we identify insects?
• What are the life cycles of insects?
• What is the importance of insects to people and
  the Earth?

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Massachusetts ELA Life Science Standards

• Language 3 Oral Presentation
• Language 4 Vocabulary and Concept Development
• Reading and Literature 8 Understanding a Text
  (facts and main ideas)
• Reading and Literature 13 Nonfiction
• Composition 19 Writing with focus,
  organization, and detail 20 Audience and
  purpose 23 Organizing ideas in writing and
  24 - Research

• 1 Living things grow, reproduce, and need
  food, air, and water
• 3 Recognize life cycles and that life cycles
  differ among living things
• 4 Describe ways in which living things
  resemble their parents in appearance
• 6 Recognize that people and animals interact
  with the environment through the senses
• 8 Recognize ways in which an organisms
  habitat provides for its basic need

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Instructional Strategies that Facilitate the
Science/Literacy Connection

• Connecting the common practices of reading
  comprehension and science inquiry to develop the
  reciprocal thought processes
• Teaching students how to navigate nonfiction text
  features to deepen their understanding of the
  topic
• Scaffolding
• - Modeling explicitly to show students what is
  expected during independent/guided work time
• - Task-sharing to develop language and encourage
  students to share ideas
• - Sub-goaling to allow students to engage in the
  process of writing and to experience success
  several times in the completion of a project

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Instructional Strategies that Facilitate the
Science/Literacy Connection

• Making connections between the task at hand and
  the work of scientists to develop real-world
  understandings and build students identities as
  readers, writers, and scientists thus promoting
  engagement in research
• Engaging students in role-playing and
  science-related songs to promote language
  development and the memorization of scientific
  information
• Giving students a clear purpose and an authentic
  audience for their work to give meaning to their
  work

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The Relationship Between Reading Comprehension
and Science Inquiry

• In both reading and science inquiry, children are
  involved in the processes of
• - making connections, predictions, and
  inferences
• - asking questions
• - monitoring and evaluating information
• - setting purposes

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Predicting Inferring

• Predicting builds purpose in either domain, you
  read on or work on to see whether your prediction
  turns out to be accurate. Prediction builds
  commitment by giving readers and scientists a
  stake in the outcome.
• - Cervetti, Pearson, Bravo, Barber (2005)
• Scientists are constantly making observations
  and then drawing inferences based on these
  observations involving both creativity and
  subjectivity.
• - Crowther, Lederman, Lederman (2005)

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Predicting

• All readers, especially those at the emergent,
  early, and transitional phases, benefit from
  activating their schema for a topic and
  predicting words that may appear in a book about
  that topic. This helps them prepare for the work
  of both decoding and comprehension.

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Prediction Sheets
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Nonfiction Text Features
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Modeling

• The act of modeling consists of showing
  learners what they are expected to do.
• 
  -Spaulding (1992)
• Using modeling during the mini-lesson component
  of the workshop model allows students to
  immediately practice the skills, strategies, and
  procedures they have seen modeled.

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Task-Sharing

• In task-sharing, The large task is accomplished
  by a pair or a group of individuals rather than a
  single individual.
• -
  Spaulding (1992)
• This not only makes the large task more
  manageable, it also provides students with an
  opportunity for peer interaction and language
  development.

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Benefits of Task-Sharing for Language Learning

• According to McGroarty (1993, in Gibbons, 2002),
  some of the advantages of group work for language
  learning are
• 1. Learners hear more language, a greater
  variety of language, and have more language
  directed toward them
• 2. Learners interact more with other speakers,
  and therefore their output is also increased
• 3. What learners hear and what they learn is
  contextualized language is heard and used in an
  appropriate context and used meaningfully for a
  particular purpose.

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Research Teams

• Students were placed in research teams so that
  students who chose the same insect could share
  ideas and information. Just like real scientists
  do!
• Those students who chose an insect that no one
  else had chosen were placed together as
  Entomologists at Work to help each other with
  ideas on how to find information.

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Sub-Goaling

• When one large task is broken down into three
  smaller tasks, students have the opportunity to
  be successful three times instead of just once.
  Because success experiences are a major
  contributor to the development of perceptions of
  confidencethree small success experiences have a
  greater and more positive effect on students
  self-perception of competence than a single
  success experience.
• - Spaulding (1992)
• The task was also sub-goaled in accordance with a
  process-based approach to writing. The
  process-based approach further scaffolded
  students text productions in that it allowed
  students to build upon their previous texts in
  the production of each subsequent text.

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Making real-world connections between the task at
hand and the work of scientists

• Students were given the titles and roles of
  entomologists, readers, writers/authors, and
  researchers.
• These were powerful roles for students usually
  placed in categories such as at-risk, Limited
  English Proficient (LEP), etc.

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Husseins About the Author Page
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Using Songs and Actions to Reinforce
Understandings
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Purpose Audience

• Early on in their study of insects, the students
  wrote letters to Mrs. Lodi, the schools science
  teacher.
• The students books (the result of their research
  projects) were read to another second grade
  class, who had also studied insects, and an
  audience of parents, teachers, and district
  administrators.

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Sharifs Letter to Mrs. Lodi
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Shalymars Report on Butterflies
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Student Assessment Information

• Science folder with observation notebook,
  diagrams, letters to and from a science teacher,
  and research notes/graphic organizers
• Performance tasks
• District-wide science assessment measuring the
  identification of the anatomy of an insect, the
  stages of the life cycle, and comparing/contrastin
  g the two insects studied as a class
  (mealworm/beetle and caterpillar/butterfly)
• Report (in book form) on insect of students
  choosing

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Performance Tasks

• Students will become entomologists through hands
  on observations of mealworms/beetles and
  caterpillars/butterflies.
• Students will become entomologists through an
  in-school visitation with an entomologist from
  a local conservatory.
• Students will become entomologists by visiting a
  nature conservatory to observe insects in
  different habitats (pond, field, forest).
• Students will become entomologists and authors by
  researching and reporting on an insect of their
  choice.
• Students/entomologists will share their books
  with other students, teachers, and family during
  an Insect Book Fair.

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The District Science Assessment

• 13 out of the 14 second grade students who
  participated in this integrated science/literacy
  unit of study passed the district science test
  (the one failing student missed more than half of
  the unit due to absences/homelessness).

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Sharif at Work on His Insect Report
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Insect Reports Sharifs Anatomy Page
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Science Notebooks

• Notebooks are meant to be tools for students to
  record both their data and thinking as they work
  with materials. They are utilized prior to the
  investigation to record the students thinking or
  planning during the investigation to record
  words, pictures, photos, or numbers, possibly
  getting wet and messy in the process and after
  the investigation to help students reflect on
  their thinking and data in order to share them
  with others.
• - Campbell Fulton (2003)

• Data can be recorded in students science
  notebooks in the following forms
• notes and lists
• technical drawings and diagrams with labels
• charts
• tables
• graphs
• written observations

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Importance of Science Notebooks to Science
Understandings

• The important but abstract ideas of science
  all begin with observing and keeping track of the
  way the world behaves.
• -National Research Council (1996)
• By utilizing notebooks in writing, discussing,
  and reflecting, students begin to focus on the
  scientific content they know as well as how they
  know it an important step in developing
  students metacognitive thinking. Students begin
  constructing their understanding of scientific
  ideas as they determine what information needs to
  be recorded in their notebooks and the best way
  to organize it.
• One of the purposes for maintaining science
  notebooks, in addition to exploring scientific
  content and literacy, is to replicate the work
  that scientists do.
• -Campbell Fulton (2003)

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Importance of Science Notebooks to Literacy

• Both research and practical experience
  demonstrate that language is an essential part of
  science learning and that both native English
  speakers and English Language Learners develop
  their language skills through authentic
  experiences.
• Bybee, in Campbell Fulton
  (2003)
• By asking students to reread their notebook
  entries, the teacher is encouraging them to work
  with informational text at their level. After
  using notebooks as a beginning stage of reading,
  students can progress to other related
  informational text.
• Vocabulary is a by-product of notebook use.
  Within science, vocabulary is developed in the
  context of the investigation. Students use
  language with which they are familiar to describe
  the work they are doing. students informal
  language is connected to the formal scientific
  vocabulary by both the teacher and other
  students.
• - Campbell Fulton (2003)

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3 - 2 - 1

• 3 things I learned
• 2 questions I have
• 1 thing I will take back and do

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References

• Campbell, B., Fulton, L. (2003). Science
  notebooks Writing about inquiry. Portsmouth, NH
  Heinemann.
• Cervetti, G. N., Pearson, P. D., Bravo, M. A.,
  Barber, J. (2005). Reading and writing in the
  service of inquiry-based science. Retrieved from
  http//seedsofscience.org/papers/
• Crowther, D. T., Lederman, N. G., Lederman, J.
  S. (2005). Understanding the true meaning of
  nature of science. Science and Children, 43 (2),
  50-52.
• Gibbons, P. (2002). Scaffolding language,
  scaffolding learning Teaching second language
  learners in the mainstream classroom. Portsmouth,
  NH Heinemann.
• Klentschy, M. P. Molina-De La Torre, E. (2004).
  Students science notebooks and the inquiry
  process. In E. W. Saul (Ed.), Crossing borders in
  literacy and science instruction Perspectives on
  theory and practice (pp. 340-354). Newark, DE
  International Reading Association.
• McKee, J. Ogle, D. (2005). Integrating
  instruction Literacy and science. New York
  Guilford Press.
• National Research Council. (1996). National
  science education standards. Washington, DC
  National Academies Press.
• National Science Education Standards Retrieved
  from http//www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/nses/2.h
  tml
• Spaulding, C. L. (1992). Motivation in the
  classroom. New York McGraw-Hill, Inc.

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We would like to thank

• Our students, for sharing their learning and
  excitement
• Renee Lodi, for her science expertise