Reading Matters Winter 2018

picture. The student who drew the picture with the turtles with eyelashes drew a much more scientific picture of a turtle leaving the beach to go back into the water. In her drawing, there was a label for the shell of the turtle as well as the sea and eggs. This strategy reinforces the use of scientific terms as students write the terms and then orally explain their drawings to peers. Through class sharing, students may decide that they want to modify their drawings to show additional terms. We know from research (Van Meter, Aleksic, Schwartz, & Garner, 2006) that students learn more when they not only write but also draw an image about a science topic. In fact, the Framework for K-12 Science Education (NRC 2011) emphasizes the importance of students learning to communicate scientific information through both drawing. With Talking Drawings, we not only reinforce student learning through drawing, but students can see how much they are learning. As students look at drawings they create, their most recent drawings will contain many new vocabulary terms and concepts which were initially unfamiliar. This can instill confidence and a desire to learn more about the scientific topic. Depending on the length of the unit, teachers may also choose to have students create several drawings at different points throughout the unit. Ten Important Words Plus While Ten Important Words Plus (Yopp and Yopp 2003) doesn’t involve drawing, it does provide students with choice , and choice is powerful both in and outside the classroom. As adults, we often have a lot more choice in what we read and learn than children do, and we value the opportunity to have a say in what we do. Our students also value having a choice in their learning, so if we can enable them to feel that they are actively involved in their learning, they will be more engaged. We can begin this strategy by asking students to read a chunk of a science text in groups. As they read the text, ask them to note any words that they think are important. In a chapter on the solar system, diverse words such as telescope, star, and even constellation might be listed by students. This will often lead students to question and discuss what it means to be an important term. Are words in titles or subheadings typically important? Does word importance tie to the frequency of use in a text? If the author uses a unique font or highlights a word, does that mean anything? If a word is longer than many others does that mean the word is important to understanding the text? There is no definitive answer to this question, but it’s a great way to encourage students to think and discuss the words they encounter in science text. After students individually read the text, put students into small groups and ask them to come to agreement on the ten words they think are the most important in the text. Ask one person in each group to write down the ten terms. After each group creates a list, ask the first group of students to read their list, and write those words on the board. Then ask the second group to state any of the words they have on their list that are not already on the board. As students orally share the words, add these to the list on the board. Repeat this procedure with remaining groups. Many words will be written on more than one group’s list.

After chorally reading and discussing the words on the board with the entire class, have the students form new groups. Select a word off the board and ask each of these groups to complete a task with that word. Tasks can vary greatly depending on the words. As a class, students can brainstorm tasks for this strategy. Students might act out the word, create a visual to help classmates learn the term, write other forms of the term, create a short rap about the term, or produce a graphic organizer showing the term’s relationship to other words on the board. Students will not only benefit as they complete their group task, but they will be talking with group members about each term and expanding their knowledge of it. Ask each group to share their creation and then select another word. (Be sure to frequently change the group tasks so that the same group of students isn’t always drawing or acting out terms.) Even though students create the list of terms on the board, the teacher selects the one for each task. Most, if not all, of the terms you will want to teach students will be on the board. However, this strategy motivates the students to learn the terms because they feel they have choice in their selection. Sniglets Hall, a comedian in the 1980s, created the idea of a Sniglet as a term that wasn’t in the dictionary but should be. Unlike the previous two vocabulary strategies which focus on teaching entire terms, this activity focuses on developing vocabulary through the teaching of smaller units of meaning often found in science terms. Tying the idea of Sniglets to science works well because many science terms have roots that are the same in many scientific words. As we look at the demands of science terms, we can see that it may not always be best to teach entire words. Think about roots such as –osis , -ology , hydro- . Those roots are the basis for many scientific terms students encounter in text. Have students look online for lists of morphemes, or small units of meaning, or provide students with a list of morphemes that they encounter regularly in science. There are many lists available on the Internet which contain morphemes and their meaning. As a class, create a list of morphemes on butcher paper from which students can pick to use in their Sniglet. Be sure to also include some affixes such as pre- , re -, and – er which students see in many words including scientific terms. Ask students to create a Science Sniglet that combines three of the morphemes on the chart. Remember the purpose of this activity is to help students develop vocabulary so that they can develop scientific knowledge. We all have the student who will try to use as many morphemes as possible to create a Sniglet and therefore, not actually remember the meaning of any of the morphemes. If we limit the number of morphemes students can use in a Sniglet, they are more apt to remember the morphemes beyond the creation of the Sniglet. Students can write the definition, use the Sniglet in a sentence, and even draw a picture of it. While our students are creating fictitious words, they are learning important morphemes that can help them decode unfamiliar terms they will see in future scientific texts (Altieri, 2011).

Reading Matters Vocabulary Matters

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