Week 6 - Disciplinary Literacy

This week was cut a bit short between President's Day Monday and a snow day on Friday. Sometimes that's just how it goes in teaching, you have to readjust plans and start again the next week! I was still able to observe and help teach science lessons on birds and amphibians. 

We have been doing much of our animal fact-learning and note-taking during our writing block because we don't have enough time devoted to science and social studies to get this learning and writing done. At first, I was unsure if using the writing block for science was a best practice, but Nell K. Duke changed my mind! In her webinar, Speaking Up for Science and Social Studies, she gives three reasons why she feels that more time devoted to science and social studies would greatly benefit literacy. Her first reason is that science and social studies knowledge greatly affects reading and writing, her second is that science and social studies provide a compelling context for teaching reading and writing, and three, reading, writing, and other literacy practices are an integral part of professional practice in science and social studies ((Nell K. Duke, 2019). 

 

 Kathleen Kopp also commented on this. She said "since science textbooks are heavily loaded with difficult vocabulary words and complex concepts, it makes sense to encourage students to write about what they read, as it can help solidify their learning. Writing provides a bridge between the content knowledge and understanding" (Kopp, 2015, p.73). The more I have thought about it, learning science concepts and then having the students immediately write about them is a beautiful pairing! The kids seem to remember so many more facts than I thought they would and I attribute it to them writing their new knowledge down.

One of the resources given to us this week that really resonated with me was the video Strategies for Teaching Reading: Thinking Partners. In this video Linda Hoyt models an interactive read-aloud and using the strategy of thinking partners (Heinemann, 2010). My mentor teacher did a read aloud this week using the text What If You Had An Animal Tongue? This book was so engaging! She also used the strategy of thinking partners and the kids had such a good time discussing in partners how they would look with different kinds of animal tongues. My mentor teacher did a great job of incorporating little side-notes of facts that we had learned about many of the animals in the book. 

At the end of the read-aloud the students got to draw a self-portrait with the animal tongue of their choice. I unfortunately did not have a chance to capture these drawings but I heard they were pretty wild! 

One thing that is exciting about the first-grader's animal studies is that they now have enough background knowledge to do things like compare two different types of animals. Kathleen Kopp wrote about making comparisons in science. She said, "research confirms that one of the most effective ways for students to retain content information is to have them make comparisons between ideas (Kopp, 2015, p.92). The teachers have created charts on each type of animal that have characteristics and examples and they have hung them around the room to help the students remember. The students are surrounded by all this great information which will lead to them choosing their own animal to research in the next week. I am so excited to see what they all choose!

Resources

Heinemann. (2010, August 16). Strategies for Teaching Reading: Thinking Partners [Video recording]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYoeVkf3s7E

Kopp, K. (2015). Teaching Science Today (2nd ed.). Shell Education.

Nell K. Duke. (2019, March 4). Speaking Up for Science and Social Studies [Video recording]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAWO2lvAnjI