Mod 5 Strategy Application Blog
PRS: I would focus on prefix an- and the suffix -ion to continue student understanding.
Prefix an
Gesture: forming an "X" with my hands
Image: image of blank face (anonymous)
Suffix ion
Gesture: hands coming together
Image: image of breathing cycle with arrows showing the movement of air in and out of the lungs.
Sample Card:
In this week's lesson I resonated strongly with the need to not just teach students the vocabulary but to understand word knowledge. Creating tiers to best focus on vocabulary words is a practice I will bring to my CLT meetings in the coming year to better facilitate educational time in class.
Science is concentrated with vocabulary and understanding the prefixes and suffixes greatly will aid in student retention. In previous classes I saw that 80-90% of the vocabulary in science uses prefixes and suffixes. Adding on to this a majority of science specific words are derived by Latin and Greek roots. When it comes to vocabulary, at times I feel I am a foreign language teacher. Which only compounds the confusion for my ELLs.
In Fisher's book, Improving Adolescent Literacy, the strategy that works section for science was using word sorts to separate vocabulary into categories. Having taken Word Analysis EDRD 628, the use of word sorts was focused on literacy properties. Shifting the target in a Science class hadn't crossed my mind but I am glad it was shown here.
Hello James,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post! As someone who struggled in science class growing up, I find that PRS is crucial for a class like this. I remember always getting tripped up on the words, and would have benefitted from associating words to hand gestures, such as the x you included!
I will admit that I am still a bit confused with the connection between the prefix "an" and "am". Do they both mean the same in the "science" world?
Thank you so much!
Laura Reymundi
I really like the concept of using hand gestures to help student build vocabulary. I have never taught any science class, but I have heard about the vocabulary struggles through my co-workers and students who take the class. Many of our ESOL student struggle to pass their science SOL ( whether it is biology, chemistry, or earth science) and one of the major contributors to this problem is simply the lack of understanding of the terminology. Even if they have access to a dictionary( English to English or bilingual) if they don't have any foundational background knowledge of science, they may still struggle. This is why your blog post really spoke to me. I feel this would help bridge the gap for all students who struggle with science, especially the SPED and ESOL kiddos.
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