Science Literacy

1. Science Literacy August 19, 2009 Alexis Swinehart RHS Literacy Coach

2. Good Morning • Grab a donut & a folder • Complete a Reflection Sheet

3. How was YOUR summer?

4. Today’s Agenda INTRODUCTION – Reflection Sheet • Definition of Literacy & Understanding • Comprehension Activity • The Question Formulation Technique BREAK • Comprehension Essentials • Literacy Strategies LUNCH • Integrate with your curriculum/lesson planning • Questions & Reflection

5. What is Literacy?

6. What does it mean to Understand?

7. Billiards • Read the poem, “Billiards” • Rate your comprehension of the poem on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = very low, 5 = middle, 10 = extremely well)

8. How to Bartle Puzballs There are torkgooboos of puzballs, including laplies, mushos, and fushos. Even if you bartle the puzballs that tovoinny and onny of the pern, they do not grunto any lipples. In order to geemee a puzball that gruntolipples, you should bartle the fusho who has rackled the parshtootoos after her humplyfluflu. • How many gooboos of puzballs are there?  • What are laplies, mushos, and fushos? • Even if you bartle the puzballs that tovoinny and onny of the pern, they will not what? • How can you geemee a puzball that gruntoslipples?

9. Why use literacy strategies?

10. Have you ever experienced? • A student who appears to understand every sentence and yet cannot answer a single question about the passage as a whole.

11. Have you ever experienced? • Students who appear to have the linguistic proficiency to deal with a text, but are unable to do so because they are approaching it in an inappropriate way.

12. Have you ever experienced? • Students - “I didn’t understand the chapter.” • Teacher – “What part of it?” • Students – “All of it.”

13. The Question Formulation TechniqueWhy are students not reading content material? • Different reading levels • Lack of motivation/engagement • Lack of skills (study, fluency) • Lack of stamina • Lack of importance/need/responsibilities • Lack of background knowledge/models • Lack of comprehension attack skills • Poor work ethic • No time

14. 3 Factors that Increase Readability/Comprehension • Background Knowledge– The more background knowledge a reader has about a topic, the more difficult text he can readThis includes VOCABULARY! • Purpose– When a reader knows why he is reading something and knows what task is required for the text, he can better sift and sort information to determine what is important • Interest & Motivation– If a reader has interest in the topic or is motivated to read the text, he will work harder to comprehend meaning. This includes Social Interaction!

15. Huh?

16. Background Knowledge “Past experiences always influence new learning. What we know acts as a filter, helping us attend to those things that have meaning and discard those that don’t. When we read something new, we are much more likely to understand it if we see connections that make it relevant. When these connections are murky or unseen, reading comprehension gets cloudy.” (Kelly Gallagher Deeper Reading (2004)

17. The Procedure Read “The Procedure” silently Write down what you think it means

18. A Procedure The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups depending on their makeup. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities, that is the next step; otherwise you are pretty well set. It is better to do too few things at once than too many. Remember, mistakes can be expensive. At first the whole procedure will seem quite complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another fact of life.

19. Text Structure How well do you know your textbook? How well does your students know your textbook?

20. Text Structure A synthesis of research indicated all the following enhance reading comprehension: • Well-presented physical text features • Student awareness of text structure • Explicit instruction in text structure/feature

22. Importance of Vocabulary • Vocabulary is among the greatest predictors of reading comprehension. • Children who enter school with limited vocabulary knowledge grow more discrepant over time from their peers who have rich vocabulary knowledge. • The number of words students learn varies greatly. • 2 versus 8 words per day • 750 versus 3000 words per year • Missing just 5 percent of the words in a text makes it nearly incomprehensible.

23. Missing 5% Factoid 1 Caffeine is tasteless. A “strong” wepuha is mostly the result of the amount of coffee in relation to the amount of water. The longer a bean is sisku, the less caffeine it has. “Arabica” beans have more flavor than “Robusta” beans, which are mostly used in high-volume coffees and instant coffees. Factoid 2 Wepuha is the way the bean is edusca, not the bean itself. You can use many different balksiks to produce wepuha coffee. You can also use the wepuha roasted coffee to make a larger cup of coffee. In the United States, wepuha roasting mostly in a darker roast than wepuha roasting in Europe.

24. Comprehensive Vocabulary Instruction in the Content Area • Intentional • Transparent • Useable • Personal • Priority • Repetition & Exposure • Repetition & Exposure • Repetition & Exposure • Repetition & Exposure

25. Explicit Vocabulary Instruction -Selection of Vocabulary Tier One - Basic words • chair, bed, happy, house, car, purse Tier Two - Words in general use, but not common (Academic Vocabulary) • analyze, facilitate, inherent, fundamental, supplement, equivalent, inevitable Tier Three - Rare words limited to a specific domain (Background Vocabulary) • tundra, totalitarian, cellular respiration, genre, foreshadowing, monoculture farming, judicial review

26. Pre-Teaching Textbook Vocabulary • Skim the science text with each level of reader in your class in mind. What groups will need support? • Can you pre-teach vocabulary and concepts to ELL/IEP students in small group before lesson? • What vocabulary activities can you do to get ‘the 7-14 meaningful contacts’? • Which words in the text could you use the context for definitions?

27. Explicit Vocabulary Instruction-Selection of Vocabulary • Representation • Repeatability • Transportability • Contextual Analysis • Structural Analysis • Cognitive Load Vocabulary

28. Researchers think that…. Word knowledge is not an all-or none proposition (Beck and McKeown, 1988)and that we need to attend to our students’ “levels of word knowledge (which) should …dictate instructional strategies”.(Beck, McCassin,, McKeown,, 1980) page 100

29. Levels of Word Knowledge:

30. Word-Learning Strategies • Use of context clues. • Use of dictionary, glossary, or other resource. • Use of meaning parts of the word. • Prefixes • Suffixes • Root words Vocabulary

31. Why are we reading this?

32. Setting a Purpose- Why Am I Reading This? A Reader's Purpose affects everything about reading. • Students who read with a purpose tend to comprehend what they read better than those who have no purpose •  Reading Purpose helps a student determine: • the speed and approach of reading • what is important • what is remembered • what comprehension strategy to use to enhance meaning • Providing specific purposes helps students to avoid remembering everything they read, but instead allows students to focus on the intended instructional purpose

33. Perceptual Experiment http://transformationteam.net/video/perceptual_experiment_tc

34. Establish a Clear Purpose If students are reading in class or at home, give them a clear purpose for reading and a method for retention. So if you want to assign them a Chapter 4 on Motion and Force be explicit – “Identify and explain Newton’s three laws of motion.” Students should use some method for recording their examples (double-journal/post-its/etc.) *Reread with purpose – Sections of text can be reread with a different purpose to tackle difficult content, perspectives, or critical thinking.

35. Power of Reading

36. Independent Reading • “The best way to foster vocabulary growth and comprehension is to promote wide reading.” (Anderson, 1992)

37. Reading Makes you smarter “Students in the top 5 percent of national reading scores read 144 times more than students in the bottom 5 percent.” Paul, T. (1996) Patterns of reading practice. Institute for Academic Excellence.

38. Reading Minute • 3-4 times a week, share an interesting piece of reading. The reading selections are from variety of genres from various sources. • Sometimes the activity is a springboard into the lesson and sometimes it is a quick 1-2 minute sharing of text.

40. Social Interaction “To develop language, the child must engage in conversation with other, who shape her understanding of concepts, correct her errors, and give her new labels to use.” (Fisher & Frey, 2008) Students improve vocabulary and content learning as a result of the discussion they had with peers.

41. Obstacles?

42. Gradual Release of Responsibility • Teacher modeling I Do • Guided Practice Collaborative learning We do • Independent Practice Application of the Strategy You do Fisher & Frey, 2007

43. Where to start? • Background Knowledge • Vocabulary • Setting a Purpose • Motivation/Engagement • Social Interactions (Norms, Activities, Procedure)

44. Integrating Strategies Vocabulary Other Text Activities

45. Vocabulary Notes Example Practice Activity - Word Sorts (Gillett & Temple, 1983)

46. Vocabulary Instruction -Additional Practices • Introduce the part of speech. • Introduce synonyms (same), antonyms (opposite), homographs (same spelling - different meaning). • Tell students when and where the word is often used. • When appropriate, introduce the etymology (history and/or origin) of the word.

47. Vocabulary Instruction • Also provide instruction on multiple-meaning words (polysemous) Words such as: solution, element, space, process, run, relation, product, positive, negative, age, jam, grounds, duck, division

48. Negotiated Definition • Choose a word in context to define. • Reread for information in the context. • Put the meaning in your own words. • How can we use the words in sentences? • What part of speech is this use of the word? • Draw a picture of the word meaning in living color. • Display the poster and celebrate your great new word!

49. Vocabulary Instruction Remember:After a word has been taught, introduce students to the relatives. conform advocate conforms advocates conformed advocating conforming advocacy conformity conformist non-conformist non-conforming on-conformity

50. Example Practice Activity -Semantic Mapping (Heimlich & Pittelman) Alternative #1: Give students categories and have them add words. Alternative #2: Have students generate list of related words. Then, have them work with a partner or a team to put the word into categories.