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A song to help introduce students to the phonics that make up the English alphabet. Since we are now introducing written letters to the phoneme sounds, we've moved into phonics.

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Reading Rocket introduction to our unit topics of phonics and decoding

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Phonics instruction teaches the relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. To read, children need to understand the alphabetic principle - the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language. Decoding is when we use letter-sound relationships to translate a printed word into speech.

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An introduction to phonics to help the teacher and parents understand the topic being taught and what it encompasses.

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What is phonics? | ReadwithPhonics - Learn to Read with Phonics

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An article defining our current topic of reading comprehension

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Visual chart depicting the necessary skills that must come together in order for a student to become fluent in the discipline of science. While the subjects are the same as normal reading (background knowledge, vocabulary, etc.), they have specific meanings in science that must be understood in order to navigate the discipline. Often times, this coming with a vocabulary hump as science uses quite a few technical terms.

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Overlap between the science and language arts disciplines defining what is the science of reading.

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For years now, the early literacy education community has been talking about the need to reform our practice to align to the science of reading. But what is the science of reading? And how can it improve our practice so kids become better readers?

What is the science of reading?

The science of reading is the converging evidence of what matters and what works in literacy instruction, organized around models that describe how and why.

One research study does not make a science. In early literacy alone, tens of thousands of studies have been published, and some even show results that are at odds with one another. For educators to be able to consume research meaningfully, we need to look for a convergence of evidence. When many well-designed studies point to a similar result, we should pay attention.

How does it help us make sense of reading?

An important model in early reading research is the simple view of reading. It says that reading comprehension (RC) is the product of decoding (D) and language comprehension (LC), or RC = D x LC.

Learning to read for understanding requires sounding out and recognizing words-decoding-but it also requires making meaning of the words and sentences we hear-language comprehension. While taking a microscope to any one aspect of reading reveals more complexity, the simple view continues to be supported as a strong core model in reading development, as it has been for decades.

What guidance does the science of reading offer?

Research is clear about what matters to teach in early literacy instruction: phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, fluency, vocabulary and oral language comprehension, and text comprehension. For each of these, a convergence of evidence tells us what works, in practice.

Phonological awareness: Teach students to recognize and manipulate the sounds within words. Move from syllables to the individual sounds, or phonemes. Explicitly connect phonemes to letters to more effectively support word decoding.

Phonics and word recognition: Teach letter sounds and sound-spelling patterns explicitly and systematically. Practices that include both reading and writing of words in isolation and in text are most supportive of taught phonics.

Fluency: Include frequent chances for students to read and re-read orally from connected text-sentences, paragraphs, and passages. Focus on the development of both automatic word recognition and fluent expression, keeping understanding of the text as the central goal.

Vocabulary and oral language comprehension: Include high-quality, language-rich interactions in instruction. With read-aloud texts, unpack academic and inferential language. Explicitly build students' recognition of shared morphemes (e.g., root words, affixes) across words, both in oral and written language.

Text comprehension: Even before young students can read on their own, teach from rich texts via read-alouds and scaffolded reading. Teach students to use metacognitive strategies like setting a purpose, monitoring for meaning, and building inferences while reading. Discuss texts, including focusing on their organizational structures.

What could a science-of-reading classroom be like?

To align more closely to what the science tells us, we should start seeing and hearing some change. We should stop seeing only incidental teaching of sound-spelling patterns. Instead of just happening to notice a silent E on the page we have open-aha! Teachable moment!-we should teach decoding skills systematically. We should see a dedicated portion of the literacy block where phonics is taught clearly and sequentially from an identifiable curriculum. When kids learn from our planned sequence how that silent E works, we should see engaging practice-word work, often masquerading as play-followed by both reading and writing practice that applies those silent E skills purposefully.

The science of reading is the converging evidence of what matters and what works in literacy instruction.

We should also stop seeing comprehension taught via leveled reading groups, where each group visits the teacher for round-robin reading through a new text "at the right level." Instead, we should see use of a rich, complex text for all the students in a class. We should hear multiple reads of the same text, beginning with teacher modeling and moving to student practice. We should see partnering for repeated readings to develop fluency. We should hear the voices of students and the teacher in high-quality conversations about the text that focus on language, structure, and deepened understanding.

Where can we learn more?

Lots of good materials have been produced to get this research into practice, much of it paid for by our tax dollars.

These excellent research-to-practice materials can only help if we actually use them. Commit to building a learning community around one or more of these materials, beginning by downloading and reading as a group. Then discuss, try things with students, reflect, and repeat. This is how the science of reading matters, and how it works: by helping all our kids to become empowered and thoughtful readers.

For more on the science of reading, see "The science of reading and balanced literacy: What you need to know."

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The science of reading explained - Teach. Learn. Grow.

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For years now, the early literacy education community has been talking about the need to reform our practice to align to the science of reading. But what is the science of reading? And how can it improve our practice so kids become better readers? What is the science of reading?

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Reading Comprehension is the product of Decoding (our key term) and Language Comprehension

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How to Teach Sight Words - Science of Reading

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An example of some new teaching strategies developed through the science of reading.

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How to Teach Sight Words - Science of Reading // sight word activities for struggling readers

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Uniting Science Knowledge and Literacy Development. -2018

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Discussion about how to introduce science into the first and second grade classrooms, interlocking with the literacy development that normally transpires at that age. Video covers how this can especially help ESL students.

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0:00 / 2:52•Watch full video

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First Grade, Second Language: Uniting Science Knowledge and Literacy Development. -2018

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The importance of Reading in the Science discipline.

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Many people believe that science education is all about hands-on activities and experiments. This emphasis on the doing aspect of science underwrites inquiry-based approaches to science education. Often, part of the argument for the inquiry approach is that students should be acting more like real scientists in the field or lab. But while hands-on activities may be extremely valuable for students of science, devaluing reading both cripples science education and misrepresents what real scientists do.

Reading is not only a crucial way for students to learn science content, it is also an important part of what professional scientists actually do. One study found that scientists and engineers spend over half of their working time reading, interpreting, and producing text. Without research, there is no science; but without communication, research would grind to a halt. Literacy enables vital inputs and outputs for research: read; research; write; repeat.

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Reading and Science | Reading to Learn in Science

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Many people believe that science education is all about hands-on activities and experiments. This emphasis on the doing aspect of science underwrites inquiry-based approaches to science education. Often, part of the argument for the inquiry approach is that students should be acting more like real scientists in the field or lab.

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Video definition of Fluency

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What is Fluency? How to Improve Reading Skills

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Infographic depicting the cornerstones of oral fluency

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Synopsis of Fluency challenges that face ELL's and strategies for assisting them in their quest.

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Reading fluency is one of the 5 components that are necessary when a child is learning how to read. Fluency is the ability to read words accurately, with appropriate speed, and with expression. This is not alway possible. For English Language Learners (ELLs) there can be the added challenge that they may not immediately know what a text should sound like in English to compare their own reading to. Do not confuse reading fluency with a students accent.

"Students can read fluently in English with a native language accent."

-Beth Antunez

Here are 5 strategies for helping to improve the reading fluency of your ELLs.

Listen to Fluent Reading

Listening to a fluent reader gives students a model to base their own reading off of. Teach read alouds are one way to model fluent reading. This is also an opportunity to expose ELLs to grade level text that they might not be able to decode yet.

Audio books are another example of how to help students listen to fluent reading. Students can follow along in a text as they are listening to the book if it is close to their instructional reading level.

Students can create their own versions of audio books. You can have students choose a book at their independent reading level to practice reading. When they feel ready, record them reading the book. You can then place the recordings in a folder on a computer, or load the onto a media player for other students to listen to.

Your library might have audio books. I recently came across a set of VoxBooks at my library. These are hardback books with a built in audio player. Check if your school has a subscription to a sight with e-books. Two of my favorites are Raz-Kids and PebbleGo.

Reread Familiar Texts

Rereading helps students gain fluency. After the first few times of reading a text, the student is better able to focus on their fluency. At this point they have worked through decoding some of the unfamiliar words. Also reading an entire sentence or paragraph might give more meaning to the text. This will help with fluency as well.

Read Short Texts

Short texts give students the change to read read a text faster and with more frequency than longer texts. I used reading fluency strips with my students as one type of short text.

Opportunities to Read Out Loud

ELLs benefit from multiple opportunities to read out loud. Unfortunately they are often given fewer opportunities to read out loud than their native English peers. Here are some ideas to increase the opportunities for students to read out loud, that do not create a stressful situation (such as round robin reading). They are choral reading, echo reading, readers theatre, and partner reading.

Oral Language Development

One challenge of many reading programs for native English speaking students is that they assume that student's are already proficient in their oral language skills. For many ELLs this is not alway to case. As the oral language skills of ELLs increase, so will their reading fluency (Klingner, Hoover, Baca, 2008). I used oral language task cards with my ELLs as a quick way to help improve their oral language skills.

Vocabulary development will help ELLs make meaning of what they are reading. As they have a better understanding of what they are reading, they will be able to read with more fluency.

Songs are one way to help improve a students reading fluency and oral language skills. Students can be given the text of the song, so that they practice reading as they sing. Songs can be a low stress way to practice a text multiple times. There is also something about music that can make it easier to participate in.

Additional Resources & References

Klingner, Hoover, Baca, 2008, Why Do English Language Learners Struggle With Reading?
Developing Fluent Readers
Antunez, 2002, English Language Learners and the Five Essential Components of Reading Instruction

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Reading Fluency for ELLs - A World of Language Learners

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Reading fluency is one of the 5 components that are necessary when a child is learning how to read. Fluency is the ability to read words accurately, with appropriate speed, and with expression. This is not alway possible.

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The role of Phonics and Decoding in Science

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The role of Phonics and Decoding in Science

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Phonics and Decoding serve an important purpose in science in that new names and terms are often given to a new observation, be it phenomenon, species, substance, etc. Some of these names, especially those derived from Latin, can be very tricky to pronounce and so strong phonetic background is required to understand texts, videos, or lessons conveying this new information.

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Fluency is necessary to convey science ideas, concepts, and observations from one scientist to another. This ranges all the way from scientists in government labs to students exploring concepts in the classroom. We're all scientists partaking in observation and need to be able to communicate ideas to one another. Since scientific concepts can often be tricky and challenging material (though still fun), it is imperative that the speaker be as comfortable as they can be in English. This ensures that they can speak clearly and efficiently while focusing their brainpower on the concepts at hand.

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Personal account from the writer discussing her experience with reading inequity in the classroom.

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I came into the teaching profession aware that my White middle class experience would impact how I taught. I earned my teaching credential and masters degree from a program focused on social justice. There, I'd read and discussed books such as Teaching Other People's Children and Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity, so I understood, in theory, the blindness and biases I would need to overcome.

In a children's literature class, we'd gone to publishing houses owned by people of color and I'd learned the importance of stocking my classroom shelves with books that affirmed and expanded upon my students' experiences. In another class, we analyzed hidden narratives and stereotypes in popular picture books, so I knew that to negate harmful messages I'd need a critical lens.

Because of my training, I entered the classroom armed with good intentions but without much in the way of practical teaching skills. I did what most teachers do - I attempted to learn on the job.

My first school was a high-performing, low-income school, with racial diversity that made every class photo look like a carefully planned casting call. By most definitions, it was a good school with good test scores and I quickly earned a reputation as a good teacher. But even in this seemingly safe and supportive environment, the racist thinking I had been warned about crept in.

It's not that I didn't keep reading about culturally responsive pedagogy. And it's not that I didn't try to refine my practice. In fact, after reading about White microaggressions and how bias influences the discipline of Black boys, I set up a video recorder in my classroom and invited the parents of my Black boys to help me analyze the footage I collected. But my self-reflection did not result in equitable outcomes for my students. In fact, I now wonder if diving so deep to hunt for racism distracted me from the problems resting on the surface.

Normalizing inequity

A few years into teaching fourth grade, without ever being aware of it, I came to accept the achievement gap as a simple fact of school data. The students in my fourth grade classroom who needed reading intervention were reliably children of color who were poor. Every year, they went down the hall for some extra reading help and I did all I knew how to do in the classroom. I read to my students, matched them with books they loved, facilitated rich class discussions, and I had them write, rewrite, and write some more. All the practice did result in gains, but children who came to my class behind in reading left my class only slightly less behind, I never closed the gap.

I didn't understand that my students were struggling not because of problems within themselves, but because of the instruction they had (or hadn't) received. I didn't know about the assessments that would have identified the root causes of their reading difficulties, and I didn't have access to research-aligned interventions. The daily experience of seeing students of color struggling while their White and Asian classmates excelled should have set off alarm bells, but it didn't. Instead, my mind rang with cognitive dissonance - I accepted academic performance that broke along racial lines while believing that I held high expectations for all students.

Explaining away inequity

I was not consciously aware of how classist and racist ideas permeated conversations with my colleagues. Classism was cloaked in seemingly harmless phrases like, "His parents don't read to him," "Education is just not that family's priority," and "They are from out of the [school] district." Before long, I fell inline with school staff who accepted that the chairs in the reading intervention room and those outside the principal's office were nearly always occupied by kids of color.
"Racism is not a fixed category. It's not what you are, but rather what you are doing and to whom."
- Ibram X. Kendi

In an interview , Ibram X. Kendi defines racism as "a collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity that are substantiated by racist beliefs," and he explains that when faced with evidence of inequitable outcomes, a person can respond to the disparity one of two ways:

Supporting the data with racist ideas

Focusing on the racist policies causing inequitable outcomes

My mind flashed to the academic achievement gap.
When confronted with concrete evidence of inequity, educators often justify the status quo. We explain why, due to issues outside of our control, we cannot help students who need more help. We ignore schools that are already doing what we call the "impossible." We minimize the importance of the data we collect, even though it confirms disparities we see and hear in our classrooms. We discuss poverty and test-bias in our "progressive" circles, but we don't often make progress.

Fixing inequity

Rather than defend inequality, we need to dismantle the policies causing the achievement gap. We need to ask ourselves difficult questions:

1. When we disaggregate our data, what do we see and what do we say?

What reasons do we provide for our data? Are our narratives free from racist and classist assumptions?

2. What instruction do students receive inside and outside of school hours?

Do families with means supplement our instruction in a way that perpetuates the achievement gap? If so, what can we do to improve the instruction to which all children have access?

3. What do we expect of our students' families? Does every child have someone who is reliably able to meet those expectations or do our policies privilege some students over others?

What are our policies for homework, school supplies, science fairs and other projects?

How are children expected to develop background knowledge, vocabulary, skills in the arts and sciences?

How do we handle the varied pace at which students master foundational reading skills? Do all students receive sufficient practice and support?

How do our students navigate their educational choices? Does every child have enough guidance?

4. What resources and privileges must families have in order to participate in our school community?

Must they be able to leave work during the day? Travel by car? Read and/or write in English?

Are there caregivers we never see? How can we change that?

5. How do our behavior policies impact the instruction to which children have access?

Is education approached as a right? Or as a privilege, that can be withheld from students?/li>

Are some students kept from important school experiences? Which students? Why?

​6. Are we collecting predictive data so we know which students are likely to encounter difficulty in reading? Or are we waiting for children to struggle?

7. Have we sufficiently prioritized and planned early intervention?

Are we using evidence-based, targeted interventions to address the root cause(s)? Or are we tracking students in leveled groups?

8. How are we holding ourselves accountable to the community? Do families know the trends in our data and our plans to improve achievement?

A recent article in the Washington Post seemed to speak directly to me:

"The right acknowledgment of black justice, humanity, freedom and happiness won't be found in your book clubs, protest signs, chalk talks or organizational statements. It will be found in your earnest willingness to dismantle systems that stand in our way - be they at your job, in your social network, your neighborhood associations, your family or your home. It's not just about amplifying our voices, it's about investing in them and in our businesses, education, political representation, power, housing and art."

I, like so many others, was spurred into deep self-reflection by current events, but I know that good intentions and anti-racist theory can't inoculate me against the racism that riddles our educational system. Facing and fixing the policies that create and perpetuate the achievement gap is the work of an anti-racist educator. It's not enough to mean well, we need to do good.

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I came into the teaching profession aware that my White middle class experience would impact how I taught. I earned my teaching credential and masters degree from a program focused on social justice.

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Article discussing why Literacy can be exacerbating social injustice if care is not taken by educators.

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Why We Must Follow the Science of Reading to Give All Students the Skills and Opportunity to Succeed

When we think about issues of social justice, many people think of voting rights, health care, hunger and food insecurity, racial injustice, and sexuality and gender equality. However, there is another social justice issue that deserves equal attention: the ability to read. Each year, over one million fourth grade students are added to the list of nonreaders in our country.

Not only do poor reading skills impact academic achievement, they are also associated with increased risk for school dropout, attempted suicide, incarceration, anxiety, depression, and low self-concept. Adults who lack basic literacy skills are more likely to be unemployed, underemployed, and incarcerated. This means they are far less likely to be able to provide for their families, support the economy, and pay taxes. They may not use the healthcare system out of fear or use it too much because they are unable to follow written instructions on prescriptions or discharge papers. Thus, making sure all children learn to read is not only an issue of social justice but also of economics.

What Is the Current Status of Reading Proficiency in the US?

As a nation, we know we have gaps when it comes to reading proficiency. We have achievement gaps for all students compared to proficiency standards and even greater gaps for subgroups of students. National performance on the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Performance (NAEP) indicates that only 35% of all fourth-grade students performed at or above proficiency levels in reading, indicating that almost two thirds of students are struggling readers.

When the 2019 NAEP data are disaggregated by race, the results are even more troubling. Only 18% of Black students performed at or above proficiency levels compared to 45% of White students. While there are certainly middle-class White children who have difficulty reading, many suggest that the real fault line for America's high illiteracy rate occurs at class and race.

We Know How to Teach Children to Read but Are We Doing It?

Unfortunately, along with having large gaps in reading proficiency, we also have large gaps between research and practice. In 2000, the National Reading Panel issued a report summarizing the research and evidence on the best ways to teach children how to read. They found the best approach to teaching reading includes:

1. Explicit instruction to teach phonemic awareness

2. Systematic phonics instruction

3. Methods to improve reading fluency

4. Teaching vocabulary and comprehension strategies

Researchers are no longer debating the importance of systematic, multi-year phonics and word analysis instruction and a large academic vocabulary. The scientific community has achieved broad consensus on how children learn to read, what causes reading difficulties, the essential components of effective reading instruction, and how to prevent reading difficulties. As a result, not knowing how to effectively teach reading is not the problem. Rather, the real problem is the gap between science and practice. Even though data show the science of reading is effective, this conclusion has not yet been widely adopted in practice in public schools across the nation.

One of the most research-supported models of reading is the Simple View of Reading (Hoover & Gough, 1990; Castles, Rastle, & Nation, 2018). The Simple View of Reading asserts that students need skills in two areas: reading each word in texts accurately and fluently (decoding) and comprehending the meaning of texts being read. While the Simple View of Reading does not specify how word recognition and language comprehension should be taught, it does make clear that the first task of a beginning reader is to learn how to decode words. Children need to be explicitly taught direct sound-spelling relationships following a systematic scope and sequence that allows children to form and read words early on. When children get off to a good start learning how to decode words, they can read the words they know how to say and begin reading widely, learning the meaning of words they have never heard before.

Explicit, Systematic Reading Instruction Is Critical to Keep Students From Struggling

Many children have difficulty learning to decode without explicit and systematic instruction. Oftentimes these students get labeled as struggling readers. When students cannot read very well, they tend to not read much and miss out on opportunities to learn the meaning of new words through reading. In fact, studies have estimated that fifth grade students who read at the 90th percentile encounter about two million words every year in text read outside of school. Alternatively, a reader at the 10th percentile encounters just 8,000 words. The end result is often described as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer phenomenon.

Many children who don't learn to decode in the early grades can easily grow into adulthood without knowing how to read.

Debating the Science of Reading Keeps Students From Learning to Read

Even though there is broad consensus over the past 20 years on how to best teach reading, a debate rages on. One side argues students should be taught decoding because if students know how the sounds in words are presented by letters, reading comprehension will follow. The other side argues that students should be taught comprehension because if students are focused on the meaning of what they're reading, they can figure out what the words say. Some prevailing views continue to maintain that if children are read to a lot, reading should come easily for them.

Many of the popular approaches to reading instruction are not aligned with the science of reading because they omit systematic teaching about speech sounds, the spelling system, and how to read words by sounding them out. These programs are weak when it comes to the structure of English language and strong in literature, illustrations, and cross-disciplinary units. With these programs, the role of the teacher is to create a literacy-rich environment by setting up reading groups, reading with kids, and helping them find books at their reading level. When this doesn't work, it is assumed that children aren't read to enough at home or the child has a disability. However, usually it is neither of those causes. For many children, the reason they can't read is because they have not been taught to read using the science of reading.

Reading Equity Starts With Teachers Being Taught the Science of Reading

Unfortunately, the most recent report from the National Council on Teacher Quality (2020) found that only about half of the traditional elementary teacher preparation programs across the country are teaching scientifically based reading instruction to future teachers. A 2019 Education Week survey found that more than half of teachers and postsecondary instructors who teach courses on reading said children don't need a good grasp of phonics (Schwartz, 2019). Most teachers described their approach to teaching reading as "balanced literacy" which typically includes some phonics. However, that instruction is not systematic and explicit.

Good word recognition skills only make up half of the equation. Once students know how to decode, their ability to understand what they read is determined by their language comprehension. Language comprehension involves all the words students know the meaning of and their understanding of how language works. In addition, a child's ability to comprehend what they read is linked to their prior knowledge. Some researchers have speculated that the association between strong reading comprehension and family income is because larger incomes often mean more opportunities and experiences that build knowledge of the world.

Follow the Science and Close the Reading Equity Gap

In closing, I have long reflected that I reside in a state (Minnesota) that celebrates the fact that we have the highest ACT scores in the country. Yet my state also has the largest achievement gap between Black and White students in the country. It is time to embrace a fundamental belief that all children can learn to read despite many obstacles outside of our control. We need to understand that if, as a country, we continue to keep doing what we have been doing, we will keep getting what we have been getting: great variability in outcomes and further disadvantaging the most disadvantaged students.

What we have been getting for the last decade is no change in average reading scores and only a small improvement for students at or above the 90th percentile. The percentage of students at the 10th percentile that score below NAEP basic is increasing at every grade level. These data should create urgency that we can and must do better for large numbers of students. We must raise our bar. We can no longer be complacent and accept mediocrity as evidence of change. We must be the ones to demand evidence in our classrooms and acknowledge that literacy instruction is a social justice issue. The ability to read must not be treated as a luxury but as a basic and necessary human need that calls for an urgent response in our nation's classrooms.
Thanks for reading an article from our "Putting the Science of Reading into Practice" Playbook. Download the playbook here to read it in full.

References

Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19(1), 5-51.

Drake, G., & Walsh, K. (2020). 2020 Teacher Prep Review: Program Performance in Early Reading Instruction.

Hanford, E. (2020). What the words say. https://www.apmreports.org/ episode/2020/08/06/what-the-words-say

Hoover, W. A., & Gough, P. B. (1990). The simple view of reading. Reading and writing, 2(2), 127-160.

National Reading Panel (US), National Institute of Child Health, Human Development (US), National Reading Excellence Initiative, National Institute for Literacy (US), United States. Public Health Service, & United States Department of Health. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction: Reports of the subgroups. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health.

Schwartz, S. (2019). The most popular reading programs aren't backed by science. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/12/04/the-most-popularreading-programs-arent-backed.html

Dr. Kim Gibbons is the Director of the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of MN and the Co-Director of the Wisconsin Minnesota Comprehensive Center. Her most recent book is Effective Universal Instruction: An Action-Oriented approach to Improving Tier 1 (2018).

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When we think about issues of social justice, many people think of voting rights, health care, hunger and food insecurity, racial injustice, and sexuality and gender equality. However, there is another social justice issue that deserves equal attention: the ability to read.

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It is important as educators to be cognizant of any biases that may find their way into the learning environment. Careful attention should be paid to lesson style, student ability, and chosen examples to be sure they have the greatest outreach to all of your students. Even in science, some examples may better serve one group of students over another given their background. As an example, when teaching physics, while every student has most likely had some experience throwing a ball, not all of them have swung a golf club or hit a baseball. While these are similar and both cover projectile motion, students may get caught up on the sport end of it that they don't understand and struggle to branch out from there.

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Reading Rockets introduction to our topic of Reading Comprehension

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Comprehension is the reason for reading. If readers can read the words but do not understand or connect to what they are reading, they are not really reading. Good readers are both purposeful and active, and have the skills to absorb what they read, analyze it, make sense of it, and make it their own.

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Short video going over some techniques that can be used to help those with poor reading comprehension skills

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Reading comprehension skills | Reading comprehension strategies | Free English lessons online

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How to Improve Reading Skills with Auditory Activities

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Article stressing the importance of using auditory activities in assistance with reading comprehension. This covers a different sense since reading is often done silently.

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Auditory activities are important for kids at various stages of learning. And, they help improve reading skills. (Free Reading Skills Activities PDF printable.)
Attending to sounds is part of the development of phonological awareness and phonemic awareness.

In addition to helping improve reading skills, auditory activities help kids with a life-long skill...

Improving listening skills helps with paying attention ... which helps with following directions!

Auditory memory and sequencing skills are very important for reading! The alphabet, sounds in words, and sentences all involve sequencing.

All of these skills, as well as listening, are fundamental components to learning.

How Does A Child Hear and Process Sounds?

Our ears take in sounds around us, we make sense of the sounds, and we react to them. Seems pretty simple, right?

It's really not!

As noted in Visual Activities for Reading, the visual system and visual processing are extremely complex. The hearing system is just as complex!

It's an intricate system that not only involves the ears "hearing sounds" - but it involves the brain processing the sounds.

Our ears take in movements from sound waves. The waves move through several parts of the hearing system.

At the end of this long sequence, a sensory response is created. The sensory response sends a message to the brain.

The brain senses what the sound is and where it's coming from. Additionally, the brain chooses to pay attention to it or to tune it out if it's not important.

For instance, you can hear a plane in the sky or a dog barking outside. You know that it's far away. Your brain tunes out the noise and pays attention to other more important sounds close to you.

We're able to learn that sounds have meaning. Our ears protect us from sounds that should alert us and protect us (footsteps, horn beeping, fire alarm.)

This is the basic part of the hearing system. When the complexity of language and learning are added- the brain has to work much harder!

Why Are Auditory Activities Important for Kids to Improve Reading Skills?

Listening and processing auditory information is a life skill!

It starts in infancy and continues through adulthood. Different learning environments require more from our brains.

From a learning perspective, a child's brain understands that sounds, letters, words and language have meaning.

A child's brain picks up on sound patterns and the sequence of sounds and words.

Sounds are stored in the brain. A child remembers the sound and retrieves the meaning automatically as they learn.

They begin to process longer sequences of sounds and words in order to follow multiple-step directions.
Stimulating the auditory system increases alertness in the brain. It helps with following directions, language development, reading, writing, and spelling.
Auditory activities are important for kids of all ages. They should begin in infancy and continue throughout development.

I know of a pre-teen who still is working on strengthening auditory skills. It helps improve language development and reading comprehension.

Even high school students benefit from auditory activities and strategies. For example, some kids memorize the periodic table of elements through songs and/or rhythm.

Adults also benefit from auditory activities!

Things to Consider When Using Auditory Activities to Improve Reading Skills

As an occupational therapist, I help parents and teachers incorporate auditory activities for kids during routines. There are a few things to consider.

Some children are very strong auditory learners. Many of these auditory activities and games may come naturally to them. They will need to be challenged more.

Other kiddos may struggle with some of the listening games - but that doesn't mean they shouldn't do them! It's important to find activities that challenge kids a little... it's helping to stimulate new areas of the brain! It helps to bring everything in balance.

More importantly, if you're concerned about a kiddo's listening skills or auditory processing, check out: What If Your Kid Isn't Listening Because of Auditory Processing Difficulties?

In addition, while the activities listed stimulate and help with listening skills, be aware that some sounds may bother some kids.

For example, the beats from a metronome should be used as a warm-up before a learning lesson, not when learning something new or when taking a test. The sounds from the metronome may be too distracting (and even annoying) for some kids.

[ Amazon affiliate links are used below. See full disclaimer for more information.]

The following are examples of auditory activities and listening games for kids. They're a fun and easy way to help improve reading skills. And more importantly, they're great for learning to listen better.

How to Improve Reading Skills with Auditory Processing Activities and Listening Games for Kids

1. Name That Sound

Play nature sounds or environmental sounds for a guessing game. Once kids figure out the sounds, play a few in a sequence and have them remember the order. There are some great free online guess the sound games for kids.

2. Listen to Podcasts, Short Stories or Auditory Books (or an adult reading)

Some kids listen better as they're playing with something (coloring / playdoh) or moving around. Ask questions that have many different answers and possibilities.

Check out Amazon's Audible Plus for a free trial or membership to have access to an array of audiobooks / podcasts.

3. Create a Thunderstorm

This is such a fun game! It sounds really cool with a group of kids.

Kids close their eyes and listen to and imitate the various sounds that they hear you make as you follow through this sequence:

Rub your hands together or slide your hands on the top of a desk or table for the sound of the wind.

Slowly snap your fingers for the raindrops, gradually increasing the speed.

Tap your fingertips on the desktop (keeping up with and increasing the speed from the snapping sound.)

Pat your hands on the desktop.

Stomp feet for the thunder!

You can also reverse the sequence as "the storm passes away in the distance." Stomp feet, pat hands on the desk, tap fingertips on the desk, snap fingers (decreasing the speed) and then slide the hands on a table for the wind.

4. Auditory Scavenger Hunts

Use descriptive and positional words ("find a medium shape to the right of the bookshelf under the chair" or a "find a blue card with the word___ on it".)

This is a good partner game for kids. They take turns reading the clues to each other.

5. Metronome

Use a metronome or a free online metronome to set a beat for tapping, clapping or marching activities.

Start with 60 beats per minute and gradually increase the speed as kids get comfortable with the activities.

For example, tap left foot to the beat, right foot to the beat, alternate tapping the feet. Follow various directions 2 taps left foot, 3 taps right foot, etc.

Add other body parts and movements such as clapping hands or patting the tops of the thighs.

6. Learn Song Lyrics, a Poem or a Chant

This is a powerful way to improve auditory processing and listening skills. Chants, mantras, and rhythmical songs are fun for kids and great for learning.

(Consider Amazon Prime Music to have access to millions of songs.)

7. Telephone Game

Practice vocabulary definitions or new facts through the telephone game. Use a sentence or phrase to introduce a new topic.

8. Following Directions Games

Use games that incorporate left-right directions such as Twister (or Twister Ultimate). Try a dance like the Hokey Pokey! Play games that incorporate directions such as Cranium's Hullabaloo.

Add multiple step directions to your own versions of Simon Says or try games like Mother May I?

9. Classical Music

Play classical music at various times during the day. It reduces stress, promotes relaxation and stimulates brain function. Studies show that it enhances memory and stimulates emotional intelligence!

It can also help kids focus when there's distracting background noise at home or school.

10. Story Telling to Improve Reading Skills

Takes turns telling short stories. Tell a story together, each person gets a specific amount of time before it passes on to the next person.

Free PDF Printable: Activities to Enhance Reading Skills

These auditory activities that help improve reading skills are listed on the free printable at the top of Develop Learn Grow's home page. Additionally, other activities are also listed that support skills needed for reading.

The other activities on the free printable include visual, balance and crossing midline activities.

The visual activities listed improve perception, position in space and visual tracking.

Balance activities are important for muscle development. They improve postural muscles and eye muscle control needed for reading.

The crossing midline activities help the two sides of the brain communicate better. In addition, they help the eyes track across midline.

Click here for your FREE Printable: Activities to Enhance Reading Skills:

For More Learning Activities for Kids Using OT Strategies:

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How to Improve Reading Skills with Auditory Activities - DEVELOP LEARN GROW

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Auditory activities are important for kids at various stages of learning. And, they help improve reading skills. (Free Reading Skills Activities PDF printable.) Attending to sounds is part of the development of phonological awareness and phonemic awareness. In addition to helping improve reading skills, auditory activities help kids with a life-long skill...

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Paper detailing reading comprehension in the science discipline and strategies for how to teach the subject. Includes variables that must be accounted for in science discipline reading.

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Strategies for assisting with science reading comprehension within the classroom, including multimodal frameworks for implementing this information

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Many studies suggest that reading comprehension can be improved by activating student's prior knowledge of subject matter before they read. Teachers can ask students what they already know about a topic, priming them to build on that knowledge. However, this advice comes with a warning: prior misconceptions can lead to miscomprehension.

Consider the example of what causes seasons. The false belief that seasonal changes are caused by the earth's varying orbital distance from the sun can make it hard for students to understand a text explaining how the earth's tilted axis of rotation causes seasonal variations. On the other hand, students may be primed to understand the text if a teacher asks them what they know about how seasons differ in the northern and southern hemisphere, or what they know about how high the sun appears in the sky at different times of year, or what they know about the length of daylight in different seasons and different latitudes (e.g., where they live versus the North Pole).

The trick is to help students use what they already know, while being wary of what they mistakenly think they already know.

Reading comprehension can also benefit from specific strategies used during reading. The trick is to get students to read reflectively and monitor their own comprehension. Students may need help identifying points of difference between their preconceptions and the actual content of the text. They can benefit from close reading strategies (involving slowing down and re-reading difficult passages) and from adopting a critical perspective on the text, questioning the author's intent. Anticipation guides can help: students can write down their initial expectations about a text, and then pause during reading to compare their predictions with what the text says.

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Strategies for the Classroom | Reading to Learn in Science

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Improve your classroom with our educational research and resources. SERP provides innovative and scalable solutions for our schools' most pressing problems.

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A list of reading comprehension activities and checks on a variety of science content topics. Helps to see where students may be at their current level of reading comprehension while staying relevant to the current class unit.

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Hands-on reading comprehension activity to help learners that may struggle learning in other ways

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Explicitly teaching, as well as continually modeling and practicing reading comprehension strategies with students is one of the most important jobs we have as teachers of growing readers.Research shows that teaching reading strategies encourages students to read and interact with text in a purposeful, meaningful way.The ultimate goal is for students to use these strategies independently. So, how can we get students to practice using them in order to successfully comprehend texts on their own?

Finding fresh, meaningful reader response activities to continually meet the needs of the many diverse learners in a classroom can be SO difficult.We use sticky notes, graphic organizers, short answer questions, collaborative anchor charts - the list goes on and on!And don't get me wrong, I LOVE using these activities for reading strategy instruction.However, these go-tos sometimes just aren't enough to continually engage all students.This is where reading comprehension crafts come in! They are no prep, engaging, hands on, interactive, and only require scissors and glue (aside from fan crafts that need metal fasteners). The design of the crafts visually breaks down each reading skill and strategy for students.This allows them to see and internalize how to use the strategy. At least three crafts are included for each strategy, ranging from very simple to a little bit more involved (on the student's end).

Close reading gets students to dive deep into texts while building their fluency.These thinking caps crafts and magnifying glass flap books come blank inside for flexibility. They also come with nonfiction and fiction graphic organizers to help guide students in their thinking for each read.

Making predictions before, during, and after reading encourages students to interact with a text.These fun crafts have students pay close attention to specific text evidence. They use their text evidence to make their own decisions on what they think will happen next.

Asking questions allows readers to set a purpose before reading a text, have an internal conversation with the author while reading, and be reflective after reading.These crafts have students ask the 5 W's (Who? What? When? Where? Why?) as well as ask questions before, during, and after reading.There is also a lift the flap craft included that guides students in using the QAR asking questions strategy.

Making authentic connections to a text encourages students to become emotionally invested in what they are reading.As they read more and more, and learn about the world around them, students move beyond just personal, text to text, connections. Next, they move to text to text and text to world connections. These crafts can be used to focus on just one connection type at a time or all three connections types at once.They include a making connections fan, a text connections chain craft, and a simple lift the flap organizer.

Beyond direct vocabulary instruction, it is so important that we give students tools to figure out the meaning of new vocabulary words on their own. These crafts encourage students to use roots and affixes as well as use different types of context clues (definition, antonym, synonym, word parts, example, or picture).

Teaching students to make inferences is a thinking strategy that has students use what they already know (background knowledge) together with text evidence in order to understand the text.The thinking cap, puzzle, and lift the flap crafts allow students to visually see how they can use background knowledge and text evidence together in order to make inferences.

Drawing conclusions has students take their inferences a step further.Three crafts included allow students to record text clues, and inferences that lead them to their conclusion(s).

Synthesizing information can be such a difficult reading strategy to teach students, but it's also so important!These crafts help students to visually see how their thinking can change and grow as they read. Then, they see how this helps them to come up with an overall understanding.They include a growing synthesizing flower, a nesting dolls craft, and a lift the flap synthesizing brain organizer.

In these crafts, students are asked to write down evidence from the text that supports their visualizations.When put together, the movie reel, glasses, and thought bubble crafts really help students to see and experience the concept of visualizing.

CREATING SENSORY IMAGES:

Having students tune into how authors describe the five senses encourages more powerful visualizations.These crafts have students record vivid sensory details from the text and illustrate their visualizations.

The more knowledge students have on a topic, the easier it will be for them to understand, and make connections to, new texts. These crafts have students record their background knowledge on a topic, along with questions they have and then what they learned on a topic.

Monitoring comprehension teaches readers that it is OK to be confused.It is all about what they do to fix this confusion that matters.Growing readers need to learn to be consciously aware of any problems they come across and use fix-up strategies in order to get back on track in their reading.These crafts have students to stop when they are confused, and choose an appropriate fix-up strategy (re-read, ask questions, read aloud, etc.). Then, they explain how it helped them.

By setting a clear purpose for reading, students are able to determine what information in a text is important or unimportant to their topic.These crafts have students record details as they are reading. Then, they separate out what information is important and what is just interesting.

Each of the above strategies are available individually in my TpT shop! The complete bundle of reading comprehension packs can be found here:

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Reading Comprehension Strategies Crafts: Hands on Activities for Teaching Reading Strategies - Raise the Bar Reading

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Explicitly teaching, as well as continually modeling and practicing reading comprehension strategies with students is one of the most important jobs we have as teachers of growing readers.Research shows that teaching reading strategies encourages students to read and interact with text in a purposeful, meaningful way.The ultimate goal is for students to use these strategies independently.

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Science reading comprehension can be challenging since it often involves a large amount of new vocabulary. Strategies to assist with making vocabulary palatable can do wonders with making students feel more comfortable reading in the world of science. Multimodal strategies are important, such as flashcards, pictures, read alouds, or games, as these allow a wider range of students to get involved in the learning. Focusing too much on one sense or one avenue of learning risks isolating learners. Doubly so, visual queues and strategies can really help ESOL students adjust to science vocabulary as they are already facing the challenge of learning the more common language surrounding the new vocabulary.

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Reading Rockets introduction to our topic of Vocabulary

Highlights:

"Educators often consider four types of vocabulary: listening, speaking, reading, and writing."

Indirect vs Direct Vocabulary Learning
~Indirect learning is learning words through "everyday experiences." Three main ways:

They engage daily in oral language

They listen to adults read to them

They read extensively on their own

~Direct learning is learning words through direct classroom instruction. Helpful for more difficult words.

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More resources: Vocabulary: self-paced course Target the Problem: Vocabulary Vocabulary Apps Topics A-Z: Vocabulary Vocabulary refers to the words we must understand to communicate effectively. Educators often consider four types of vocabulary: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Listening vocabulary refers to the words we need to know to understand what we hear.

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Stresses importance of not front loading vocabulary and not having vocabulary exams.

Covers five tips for teaching vocabulary in science:
"1- Students work with vocabulary in meaningful ways
2- Students receive specific instruction on the scientific vocabulary
3- Teachers support students in properly using “tier 2” scientific vocabulary
4- The classroom is full of text options for students to use as needed
5- All classroom communications emphasize use of scientific vocabulary"

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Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

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Reading, writing, and other communication in science requires the use of unique vocabulary. Teachers need to understand how to make this vocabulary accessible to students and how to have them consistently use it in authentic contexts. Part of disciplinary literacy instruction in science is supporting students in being able to communicate like scientists, which means they need to use the language of science.

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Article discussing how to teach Discipline Specific Vocabulary.

Highlights:

"Vocabulary learning should be contextualized."

Three tiers of Vocabulary:
"Tier One: Basic Vocabulary

Words found in everyday speech that rarely need teaching

Tier Two: Academic Vocabulary

High‐frequency words that are found in academic texts across a variety of domains but that are unlikely to occur in everyday speech

Tier Three: Discipline-Specific Vocabulary

Low‐frequency words specific to a particular field of study and often found in informational texts about that subject"

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Excerpt from Transformational Literacy
The best vocabulary learning is contextualized-students learn related sets of words from reading, listening, talking, and writing about topics and concepts. The more vocabulary a student is exposed to during learning, the more likely it is for that student to become a better reader.
Researchers agree that a vocabulary deficiency is one of the primary causes of the achievement gap. It seems obvious that students who know more words are better able to comprehend texts and disciplinary content, yet most schools do not have a systematic focus on teaching vocabulary (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010, appendix A, p. 32). The best vocabulary learning is contextualized-students learn related sets of words from reading, listening, talking, and writing about topics and concepts. The more vocabulary a student is exposed to during learning, the more likely it is for that student to become a better reader. Conversely, the better a student is at reading, the more likely it is for him or her to learn vocabulary.

Isabel l. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan (2013) describe three tiers of vocabulary words. In the first tier are the words found in everyday speech and commonly learned through conversations and in school in early grades (e.g., friend, nice, winter, community). Unless a student is an English language learner, it is unlikely that instruction in tier&dash;one words is needed.

In the second tier are the words most often found in texts, particularly academic texts of all types (e.g., relative, vary, formulate, calibrate). These words, also known as academic vocabulary, are much less likely to be found in everyday speech, even the speech of college&dash;educated adults. Helping students learn this type of vocabulary is critical to college and career readiness.

In the third tier are the discipline&dash;specific words most oft en found in informational passages rather than in literature. They are specific to a field of study (e.g., morphology, acropolis, ventricles) and key to understanding a new concept within the text. Because of their specificity, tier&dash;three words are often explicitly defined in text and repeatedly used. Students tend to learn these words when studying a particular topic, but their utility is somewhat limited. They are highly relevant to the learning at hand, but they aren't often transferrable to the next unit or text.

Three Tiers of Vocabulary

Tier One: Basic Vocabulary
Words found in everyday speech that rarely need teaching
Tier Two: Academic Vocabulary
High&dash;frequency words that are found in academic texts across a variety of domains but that are unlikely to occur in everyday speech
Tier Three: Discipline-Specific Vocabulary
Low&dash;frequency words specific to a particular field of study and often found in informational texts about that subject

It is simple to recognize the importance of teaching discipline&dash;related vocabulary while reflecting on a particular topic of study. For example, a teacher helping students grapple with the importance of protecting a watershed knows that students need to know and be able to use science words such as habitat. But what is less clear and more central to student development is the need to address the academic vocabulary found in watershed&dash;related texts. Consider the following short passage from the website of the nonprofit organization The Center for Watershed Protection:
During the land development process, forests are cleared, soils are compacted, natural drainage patterns are altered, and impervious surfaces, such as roads, buildings, and parking lots, are created. These changes increase the amount of polluted runoff that reaches our local waterways. As a result, stream banks begin to erode, critical in&dash;stream habitats are washed away or filled in with sediment, downstream flooding increases, and water becomes too polluted to support sensitive fish and bugs or recreational activities. (Center for Watershed Protection, nd)
To fully comprehend this passage, students must know the contextualized meaning of the words altered, impervious, and sensitive. (Certainly the author of this passage does not mean to suggest the fish are crying!) Therefore, the Common Core emphasizes the teaching of tier&dash;two (academic) vocabulary in addition to tier&dash;three (discipline&dash;specific) vocabulary.

Vocabulary learning can be incidental-the result of reading closely, using morphology, using context clues, and writing about and discussing complex texts-or it can be explicitly taught. Both are valuable in terms of addressing students' vocabulary development needs.

Support Incidental Vocabulary Learning

Incidental vocabulary instruction occurs when tuned&dash;in readers notice new words and words used in new ways. The word sensitive in the watershed passage might be learned incidentally when a reader stops to think, "Huh? Sensitive? Do fish have their feelings easily hurt? It must mean something else here, like their bodies can't stand the pollution." Incidental vocabulary learning can also occur when teachers support the use of word&dash;solving techniques to help readers notice new words or words used in new ways. For example, when reading the watershed passage with a class, a teacher might ask, "Did you see the word impervious used to describe roads, buildings, and parking lots? I know the prefix im&dash; means not, so not pervious. If I told you the root word pervious comes from the Latin for through, could you use the context of roads, buildings, and parking lots to figure out what impervious means?"

A steady diet of incidental vocabulary learning can occur when teachers help students read and reread challenging texts, and it is an efficient way to ensure students learn more academic vocabulary than they already know.

Teach Some Vocabulary with Direct Instruction

Direct vocabulary instruction occurs when teachers use strategies and protocols, such as Interactive Word Walls (see "Strategy Close Up: Interactive Word Wall" for more information), vocabulary notebooks or journals, Frayer model graphic organizers (see figure 7.2), concept definition maps, drawing or acting out words, flash-cards, and other word exploration and storage techniques to help learners understand and remember new words.

Deciding what words to teach, either directly or indirectly, is an important aspect of helping students develop vocabulary. Read the students' text closely yourself and think about the following points:

What words are critical to students' understanding of these texts?

What words are they likely not to know?

Which words should I teach them before reading (be cautious here-don't rob them of the opportunity to practice learning words from context)?

Which words can they learn by inferring from context?

Which words present the opportunity to teach word parts (prefixes, root words, suffixes)?

Which words can just be mentioned and which should they store through a strategy for long&dash;term use?

Which words can I use to help students develop webs of word meaning? (For example, teaching the word altered provides the opportunity to teach alternate and altercation.)

One way to teach vocabulary is through text-dependent questions. Teachers can ask questions pertaining to vocabulary usage in text, and they can also use vocabulary words in their questions.

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Excerpt from Transformational Literacy The best vocabulary learning is contextualized-students learn related sets of words from reading, listening, talking, and writing about topics and concepts. The more vocabulary a student is exposed to during learning, the more likely it is for that student to become a better reader.

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Science is a discipline with a heavy focus on vocabulary- specifically naming conventions. Students will be tasked with parsing many different names, be them species, phenomena, mechanisms, etc. These are tier three words that are necessary to being scientifically literate, but that students will not see outside the realm of science. However, with science issues lately becoming political issues, it is important that students understand these words and their meanings so that they aren't left in the dark when faced with them in the ballot box.

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References

·         Gibbons, K. (2021, January 14). Literacy as a Social Justice Issue. Illuminate Education. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.illuminateed.com/blog/2021/01/literacy-as-a-social-justice-issue/

·         Anderson, K. (2021, November 5). Learning Vocabulary in Science. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://dpi.wi.gov/science/disciplinary-literacy/vocabulary

·         Cass. (2021, July 14). Reading Comprehension Strategies Crafts: Hands on Activities for Teaching Reading Strategies. Raise the Bar Reading. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://raisethebarreading.com/2019/08/03/reading-comprehension-strategies-crafts-hands-on-activities-for-teaching-reading-strategies/

·         Comprehension. Reading Rockets. (2020, October 16). Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/comprehension

·         Croner, P. E. (2003). Strategies for Teaching Science Content Reading. The Science Education Review, 104–119.

·         Goldberg, M. (2021, September 17). It’s Not Enough To Mean Well. Reading Rockets. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/right-read/it-s-not-enough-mean-well

·         Hathaway , A. (2022, January 13). How to Improve Reading Skills with Auditory Activities. DEVELOP LEARN GROW. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://developlearngrow.com/improve-reading-skills-auditory-activities/#:~:text=Auditory%20memory%20and%20sequencing%20skills,are%20fundamental%20components%20to%20learning.

·         Jiban                                        , C. (2022, January 25). The Science of Reading explained. NWEA. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.nwea.org/blog/2022/the-science-of-reading-explained/#:~:text=become%20better%20readers%3F-,What%20is%20the%20science%20of%20reading%3F,does%20not%20make%20a%20science.

·         Kids TV 123. (2009, September 22). Phonics song 2. YouTube. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BELlZKpi1Zs

·         The Lawrence Hall of Science. (2016, November 22). First Grade, Second Language: Uniting Science Knowledge and Literacy Development. -2018. YouTube. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZSl9cB-5rE

·         MYABCENGLISH. (2019, May 28). Reading comprehension skills | Reading comprehension strategies | Free English lessons online. YouTube. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7BW9gv_OkU

·         Phonics and Decoding. Reading Rockets. (2020, October 31). Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/phonics

·         Reading to Learn in Science. SERP Institute. (n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.serpinstitute.org/reading-science/reading-and-science-education#:~:text=One%20study%20found%20that%20scientists,%3B%20research%3B%20write%3B%20repeat.

·         Science Reading Comprehension. Soft Schools. (n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.softschools.com/language_arts/reading_comprehension/science/

·         Strategies for the Classroom. SERP Institute: Reading to Learn in Science. (n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.serpinstitute.org/reading-science/classroom-strategies

·         Susan Jones Teaching. (2021, April 18). How to Teach Sight Words - Science of Reading // sight word activities for struggling readers. YouTube. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRuuvC-vmU4

·         Teaching Academic and Discipline-Specific Vocabulary. EL Education. (n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://eleducation.org/resources/teaching-academic-and-discipline-specific-vocabulary

·         Terry, B. (2017, April 11). What is Fluency? How to Improve Reading Skills. YouTube. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkb7_U06hfE

·         Vocabulary. Reading Rockets. (2020, October 16). Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/vocabulary

·         What is phonics? ReadwithPhonics. (n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.readwithphonics.com/what-is-phonics

·         What is Reading Comprehension? K12 Reader: Reading Instructions Resources. (2014, August 21). Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.k12reader.com/what-is-reading-comprehension/

·         A World Of Language Learners. (2019, April 21). Reading fluency for ELLs. A World of Language Learners. Retrieved July 13, 2022, from https://www.aworldoflanguagelearners.com/reading-fluency/#:~:text=Fluency%20is%20the%20ability%20to,compare%20their%20own%20reading%20to.

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This TED Talk video discusses a critical period between 8 and 10 months where babies "take statistics" on what they're hearing. This allows them to decide which sounds are important for their native language and which aren't, thus helping them learn to speak quickly.  (Kuhl)

This type of study helps us further understand the "critical period" of language development. Which we know exists but know relatively little about.

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Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies

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Patricia Kuhl shares astonishing findings about how babies learn one language over another -- by listening to the humans around them and "taking statistics" on the sounds they need to know. Clever lab experiments (and brain scans) show how 6-month-old babies use sophisticated reasoning to understand their world.

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Listening comprehension and speaking prowess outpace reading comprehension and writing prowess in young learners. Higher complexity can be achieved through speaking and listening (Fisher and Frey).

There is curiosity on if focusing on improving listening comprehension in the classroom will, in turn, raise reading comprehension or if the gap between the two will remain/widen. Same for speaking raising writing.

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There is no reading gene that is passed from one generation to the next. Each and every brain must be taught to read anew. Unlike hair or eye color, which are coded in DNA, reading is a complex, rule-based system that must be imposed on biological structures that were designed or evolved for other reasons (Wolf, 2007).

Although most children are born with the right structures, these structures don't inherently know how to read. They are hardwired to speak and listen; in other words, we were born to talk (Hulit, Howard, & Fahey, 2010). Reading and writing are optional accessories that are bolted onto a speaking and listening brain.

Listening and reading comprehension

Decades of research, not to mention personal experiences, confirm that listening comprehension outpaces reading comprehension from early childhood through at least middle school. Based on their review of research, Stricht and James (1984) analyzed the gap between listening and reading comprehension by age of learner (see Figure 1). What is obvious from this figure is the fact that access to complex ideas, for many years of the learner's life, requires oral rather than written input.

Simply stated, children can listen to and talk about much more complex ideas than they can read (and probably write) about. In addition to the research, anyone who has ever read a bedtime story to a preschooler knows that listening comprehension is more sophisticated than reading comprehension. The proof comes from nights when you're tired and you skip a page while reading a bedtime story. That 3-, 4-, or 5-year-old's eyes pop open. You are accused of skipping some of the story, and the punishment is that now you must start over. Yes, in fact, the child is listening, understanding, and comparing the text with his or her expectations.

What is less obvious from personal experience is the persistence of this gap. According to Stricht and James (1984), the gap extends well into middle school. This gap has implications for high-quality instruction across the learner's elementary and middle school experience, and oral language development should not be considered solely the role and responsibility of early childhood educators.

Figure 1. Listening and Reading Comprehension by Age (Stricht & James,1984)

Speaking and listening and text complexity

In this time of great interest of increasing text complexity, the data represented in Figure 1 raised several question for us. Is it possible that one way to ensure that students read at increasingly sophisticated levels is to focus on increasing students' listening comprehension? In other words, if we pushed listening comprehension higher than identified in the previous research, would reading comprehension follow? If we did so, would it take longer to close the gap, or would the gap size remain, although at a higher level?

If we want to ensure that students read increasingly complex informational texts, it seems logical that students should be talking during their content area learning (e.g., Nystrand & Gamoran, 1991). Although there is significant attention to the Common Core reading and writing standards, we believe that teachers should also attend to the increased demands of the Speaking and Listening domain, especially Anchor Standard 1, which states that students should

Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010, p. 22)

There is a lot to focus on in this standard. First, students should come prepared for the discussion and not simply be expected to work collaboratively with no preparation. Second, students are expected to interact effectively with a wide range of people, not just their friends and others they choose to interact with. Third, students are expected to build on each other's ideas, maintaining the conversation and continually building on the ideas of others in the discussion. And finally, they need to be able to do all of this while they express their ideas clearly and persuasively.

Anchor Standard 1 in the Speaking and Listening domain of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) represents increased expectations for students, especially students in the primary grades. Figure 2 contains grade-level expectations for this standard. We have bolded words and phrases that did not appear in the previous grade to highlight the instructional components of each grade. For example, students in third grade are expected to "stay on topic," which is not an expectation in second grade. Analyzing the differences by grade level, known as vertical alignment, is critical if teachers are going to develop teaching points aligned with the CCSS. In addition, teachers need to ensure that students have opportunities to engage in speaking and listening regularly, which may require changes to the instructional environment.

Figure 2. CCR Speaking & Listening Anchor Standard 1

8th Grade Students

SL.8.1
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 8 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Kindergarten Students
SL.K.1
Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about kindergarten topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

SL.K.1A
Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., listening to others and taking turns speaking about the topics and texts under discussion).

SL.K.1B
Continue a conversation through multiple exchanges.

Instructional ideas for speaking and listening

There are a number of ideas for ensuring that students across the grade span and in different content areas are able to practice their speaking and listening skills. Most importantly, teachers need to dedicate time every day for students to engage in collaborative conversations in which they use academic language with their peers. In fact, we recommend that about 50% of the instructional minutes devoted to content area learning be used for collaborative conversations with peers. This is based on the success that the students in Chula Vista, California, had when their teachers increased the amount of student-to-student interaction using academic language (Frey, Fisher, & Nelson, 2013). In addition to providing students an opportunity to expand their understanding of the content as they engage in peer-mediated instruction (e.g., Sperry, Neitzel, & Engelhardt-Wells, 2010), it provides teachers an excellent opportunity to work with small groups of students who need additional support to achieve their goals.

Some evidence-based speaking and listening instructional routines have been useful for students during content area instruction in the past:

Technology offers teachers new ways to engage students in speaking and listening tasks. Even very young children are learning to follow oral directions while using tablets. Some enhancing speaking and listening tasks can be used in elementary content area instruction:

Listening Gallery Walk in which students create a visual image, record themselves talking about the image, and then code it with a symbol that will allow others to access the digital file. One way to do this is with QR codes that can be printed and included in the image itself. Alternatively, students can use the Aurasma app. This is an augmented-reality application that allows users to create and post video to enhance a viewing experience. For example, some museums use Aurasma for their patrons to view additional content after pointing a smartphone or tablet at a display. In terms of classroom application, students can create their own videos and pair them with displayed work. For example, during their investigation of artists, students in Ms. Bledsoe's third-grade class narrated their original artwork that had been inspired by a specific artist. When a tablet enabled with Aurasma was pointed at one of the art pieces, the video that accompanied the art played. When students' parents visited for open house, they were able to see their children talking about their work and to learn more about the other students in the class.

Photo narratives in which students collect images and then record a narrative to accompany the images. For example, the first graders in Anthony Munoz's classroom planted seeds. Each day, they took a picture of the container in which their seed was planted. Mr. Munoz read aloud the text From Seed to Plant (Gibbons, 1993) several times as the plants grew. Mr. Munoz helped his students create a time lapse video using Quicktime, and the students recorded their narrative about the growth of the plant that accompanied the video.

Digital storytelling to create original narrative and informational pieces. The Storybird app provides access to thousands of illustrations and photographs to illustrate original pieces of writing. These are best when completed collaboratively in order to create lots of opportunities for students to engage in meaningful discussion with one another. The Voicethread website offers two-way communication between writers and readers. Like Storybird, students create a digital story using the Voicethread tools and their own illustrations. In addition, they dictate the text for each page. Subsequent listeners can either listen to the writer's own voice or read the dictated script. Importantly, readers can then pose questions and offer connections that are in turn viewed by other readers.

As part of their social studies curriculum, Davinia Thompson's second-grade students used Voicethread to develop a class digital book on people who make a difference in their community. Ms. Thompson compiled each student's contributions and uploaded them to the Voicethread website. Later in the centers, students viewed the class book and recorded their comments and questions. Ms. Thompson then had the entire class view the completed digital story, with their questions included, so the class could continue the conversation about the topic.

Talking in class

Regardless of the specific approach that a teacher takes, students simply must talk in class. We have to change the climate, expectations, and accountability for student-to-student interaction in classrooms everywhere. A day should not go by in which students silently try to learn content. Instead, there should be a hum of learning, with many voices engaged in discussions about the topics under investigation. Only then will we fully realize the literacy achievements of our students orally, digitally, and in print.

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Speaking and Listening in Content Area Learning

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Oral language development facilitates print literacy. In this article, we focus on the ways in which teachers can ensure students' speaking and listening skills are developed. We provide a review of effective classroom routines, including some that can be enhanced with technology.

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This video details what oral language is, detailing the five categories of developing oral language- Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Pragmatics (Heidrick).

Phonology- The sounds of language and ability to decipher what sounds are necessary for the language. For ESL learners, especially older ones, this can be tough as they are thrust into a new language environment without the phonological skills required for that language yet. Thus, slowing their development (Heidrick).

Vocabulary- Understanding the meaning of words and phrases. Where the language learner attaches meaning and understanding to different phonological sounds and combinations of said sounds.

Syntax- Putting words together to form deeper meaning in the form of sentences, paragraphs, etc. This is the next step after vocabulary, where the language learner practices conveying ideas more complex than just words with a singular meaning (Heidrick).

Morphology- Understanding word parts, and what repetitive parts mean. E.g. "ing" meaning being in the act of doing said verb. This understanding doesn't come until the speaker develops a larger vocabulary sufficient enough to begin noticing patterns.

Pragmatics- Social Rules that the learners pick up. How to act in different settings (Heidrick).

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Children who struggle with Phonemes (the sounds for singular letters) often display as students who struggle reading throughout their education. Many issues that teachers think are related to phonics and decoding are instead more likely traced all the way back to a foundational issue with phonemes and phonologics, instead (Cole).

Phonological awareness does not involve anything on the page itself. Once readers begin attaching these sounds to symbols or letters on a page, it becomes Phonics (Cole).

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Phonological Awareness and its Connection to Reading | Science of Reading

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ELL's require extra help with phonemic awareness because many phonemes are not the same as their native language. Older learners, in particular, will benefit from small, focused lessons that cover the phonemes in English that are not present or differ from their native language (WorldofLanguageLearners 2020).

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A student's level of phonemic awareness when they enter kindergarten is a strong predictor of how easy it will be for them to learn how to read. All students in preschool and many in the primary grades are learning phonemic awareness skills. Teaching phonemic awareness skills to young ELLs is similar to their native English peers. Older ELLs may also benefit from short and targeted instruction and practice with the sounds of English.

What is Phonemic Awareness?

Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to identify and manipulate phonemes in spoken words. It is also the understanding that the sounds of spoken language work together to make words ( Reading Rockets.) Phonemic awareness activities are done without letters so that the focus is on sounds.

Components of Phonemic Awareness

Isolation

What is the beginning, middle, ending sound in cat?

Identification

Which word had the same beginning sound as cat? Dog, bug, cut (cut)

Categorization

Which word does not start with the same beginning sound, it does not belong? blue, black, red (red)

Blending

Put the sounds together to make a word. /c/ /a/ /t/ is cat. If a student struggle with blending each sound give them the initial sound (onset) and the rest of the sounds (rime) /c/ /at/.

A simple activity is to play a guessing game with students. Segment a word /t/ /r/ /e/. Students say the word and then look around and try and find it. This helps ELLs build their vocabulary as they are practicing sounds.

Segmenting

Say the sounds you hear in the word cat /c/ /a/ /t/. One way to help students with this task is to give blocks for them to move with each sound or tap their finger for each sound.

Deletion

Have students remove a sound to create a new word. Say blog. Now say blog without the /b/ log.

Addition

Have students add a sound to create a new word. Say at. Now say at and add /s/ to the beginning sat.

Substitution

Say mat. Change the /m/ to /r/. What is the new word? (rat)

Exposure to the Sounds of English

You can help ELLs strengthen their knowledge of the sounds of the English language through read alouds, songs, poems, and other word games. Choral reading is also helpful as it gives students practice pronouncing English words without the stress of people hearing if they mispronounce a word.

Focus on Sounds that are Different

Especially for older Ells, it is helpful to focus on the sounds that are different between English and their native language. Phonological awareness skills transfer from one language to another. If a student is literate in their native language then they only require instruction in sounds that are different.
English and Spanish similarities and differences
Use Pictures

ELLs need to understand the vocabulary words that are being used for a phonemic awareness lesson. Using pictures is a simple way to help students both learn new sounds and vocabulary.

Older Students

For older ELLs photographs are one way to keep instruction age-appropriate. Students can work on completing a picture alphabet book. Use magazines, teacher provided pictures and student drawings that connect to the content that students are learning. Students can sort the pictures based on the beginning sounds.

Resources

Phonemic Awareness Bundle - This set includes print and digital phonemic awareness games with pictures and rhyming puzzles.

A Fresh Look at Phonics
https://www.readnaturally.com/research/5-components-of-reading/phonological-awareness

The Big Five: Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Part 2

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Phonemic Awareness with ELLs - A World of Language Learners

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Learn ideas for teaching phonemic awareness skills to English Langauge Learners. For ELLs it is important to give instruction...

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Being Inclusive of ELL's and Struggling Readers

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Being Inclusive of ELL's and Struggling Readers

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It is important to remember, especially with respect to high school science, that not everyone is on the same level of reading capabilities. The science discipline is filled with new vocabulary, and pronunciations that at times aren't even derived from English (much is Latin). This can compound struggles for both ELL students and struggling readers.

It can help to assist students with pronunciation and creating classroom habits where students aren't afraid to ask questions. Word Walls (with pronunciations) are one strategy to try and draw focus on this new vocabulary while stressing correct pronunciation (Wolsey & Lapp 2017). Ignoring these differences and treating it as if everyone is on the same reading and speaking level only serves to disservice ELL's and struggling readers, leaving them further behind in every subject, science included.

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Child writing development mirrors their reading development- as they improve in their reading skills they learn that print has meaning and begin their foray into writing (readingrockets). In order to write well, children must develop a few critical skills:
Basic writing skills, Text generation, Writing Processes, and Writing Knowledge.

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More resources: Writing and Spelling (PBS Launching Young Readers series) Growing Writers (PBS Launching Young Readers series) Looking at Writing Writing: Course Module Writing Apps Topics A-Z: Writing A child's writing development parallels the child's development as a reader.

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In the science discipline, writing takes a few specific forms. These being experimental reports (the most common), theses, abstracts, research proposals, literature reviews, and response papers (Williams 2012). This article serves as a quick summation of things to keep in mind when writing in the science discipline, like audience, tone, and narrative voice.

It also covers how writing in this discipline can differ from other disciplines students may be more familiar with, such as omitting transition phrases and overall trying to keep verbiage concise. Lastly, the article discusses figures, graphs, and citations which serve as the backbone of conveying information and findings in this discipline (Williams 2012).

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By Ernest H. Williams
Revised by Tara McKee (2010) and Ann Silversmith (2012)

View in PDF Format

Caveat: Note that accepted practices about writing vary among science disciplines, and expectations about written work vary among science faculty.

Audience

The purpose of writing is to communicate ideas to others, so a writer must always focus on the readers for each piece of writing and ensure that the document is readily understood by those readers. Keep in mind: Who is the audience? What is the purpose of the writing? What does the audience already know, and how do I connect what they know to what is new? For some science writing the audience is the other students in the course, and other times the intended audience is broader.

Style

Science writing is known for being concise and there is no room in any paper for words, phrases, and sentences that do not contribute anything significant. However, “conciseness” does not necessarily mean “brevity”; this is a common misunderstanding and a better word to have in mind than “brief” is “efficient.” Phrasing should be efficient – every word counts – but explanations and arguments must be detailed, coherent and complete.

Kinds of Writing

Although experimental reports are the most obvious form of science writing, writing in science serves a number of different purposes, so different forms of written work are needed. This handout focuses on writing that reports results of scientific studies, but mentions other kinds of assignments that students may encounter.

Experimental reports. The format for an experimental report differs somewhat among science disciplines and different journals, but a standardized format allows one to read science differently from reading a novel. We read for information, not from the first word to the last, and we expect to find specific information in specific sections. For example, a reader might start with the Abstract to learn the main results of the study and then jump to the Results section to look at an important graph. The standard sections for an experimental report in science are the following (documents describing these sections more fully may be found on the Writing Center website):

Title |
Abstract |
Introduction | Motivates the paper and sets a context for the work.
Methods | How the experiments were done.
Results | Observations and data.
Discussion | Interpretation of results.

Conclusions

Main lessons and suggestions for future investigation.
Acknowledgements

References |

Sometimes the Results and Discussion are merged. In Physics reports, a separate “Theory” section is often inserted between Introduction and Methods, and in some Chemistry reports, the methodology may be presented as an “Experimental” section after the Acknowledgements. Other variations exist, too, within different science disciplines.

Theses are larger, more complex documents with the same general organization as an experimental report. Abstracts and summaries are short documents where authors condense a larger work into a paragraph of single page for either general or professional readers.

Other kinds of scientific writing are:
Research proposals. Proposals give background about an idea, describe a plan for research, and argue persuasively for the value of the study.
Literature reviews. As in other disciplines, one may investigate an idea in the literature and then write to describe the state of understanding of that topic.
Essays and response papers. Sometimes one writes an opinion piece about an idea or a study, usually for a general audience.

Voice

Generally, active voice is better than passive voice because it describes more clearly who did what and thus is easier to follow. Passive voice shifts emphasis away from the actor. In experimental work, however, who did something is usually less important than what was done, so one may encounter passive voice more often in writing in science than in other disciplines, especially in Method sections (e.g., “the solution was heated for 20 minutes”).

Advice: Use active voice when it is natural, though some use of passive voice provides diversity in style while de-emphasizing the performer of the actions.

Person

In the past, the first person was used infrequently in science writing, but the use of “I” or “we” is more common now because of increasing emphasis on clarity of expression. One may use the first person in writing whenever doing so improves comprehension by the reader. On the other hand, the first person should not be overused because science writing generally emphasizes the work, not the one who did it. Most experimental writing remains in the third person. In some science disciplines, the first person is referred to as “we” because a scientist is always working as part of a larger community.

Tense

There is a big difference in tense usage between writing in science and writing in many other disciplines. One reads texts in the humanities as if the author is speaking to the reader in present time, so one discusses the text in the present tense (what is known as the literary present) even though the text was actually written in the past, e.g., “Milton writes…” But there is a strong sense of timing in science: anything that took place in the past is generally described in past tense (e.g., when referring to a specific study), whereas anything currently true is described in the present tense, as it is in all disciplines. For example: “Watson and Crick (1953) proposed [past tense] a structure for DNA,” but “Our genetic heritage is encoded [present tense] in our DNA.” Most science writers don’t use the present tense when writing about work someone else has done because any work that one reads was completed in the past, e.g., “Feynman proposed that…” rather than “Feynman proposes that…” An exception is when a living person’s views are well known, have been expressed over time, or have been written in multiple articles; then one might write “Domack argues [present tense] that climate change…”

Lab Reports. A lab report should never read like an instruction manual; a lab handout might give directions as, “Make a solution of A and B,” or “We will test the hypothesis that…”. However, a report that a student writes should report the action already taken, which means that the report should be written in the past tense, e.g., “The data was consistent with…” or “We found that…” By the time the report is being written, all the work has been done! When suggesting ideas for additional research in the final section of an experimental report, future tense is appropriate. (This sounds complicated, but following your instincts usually works. Most often, an individual part of a paper, e.g. the Methods section, will be in a single tense. Tense should not vary from sentence to sentence.)

Figures, Tables, and Equations

Figures (worth 103 words!) and tables are important parts of any report, and are efficient ways of describing data, graphs, and experimental methods. Figures do not replace text - every figure or table is discussed in the text. Each figure and table must have a caption that provides technical information about the data incorporated, and/or a few notes about important features. The information in the captions is typically reiterated in the text.
Every equation gets its own line, with an equation number at the far right so you can refer to it later in the paper. All symbols must be defined. For example:
“Assuming laminar flow, the drag force on a falling sphere is given by Stoke’s equation: (1) where  air is the viscosity of air, r the radius of the sphere, and v the speed.”

References/Literature Cited

The proper use and acknowledgement of sources is important in every discipline, and science writers ensure that readers know the sources of ideas and information not their own.

Direct quotations are infrequent in science writing because the exact words used to describe an idea are rarely important. Instead, most sources are paraphrased rather than quoted, and then cited in a footnote. It is hard to put someone else’s ideas in one’s own words, but that is what a science writer generally must do. Paraphrasing forces a writer to extract and distill whatever he or she deems important from the outside source.

Literature Cited. Science writing uses a Literature Cited or References section, not a bibliography, at the end of a paper. Every item listed must be cited specifically within the document at the appropriate place. Some publishers ask for a name-year system of citation. If the author is referred to in the sentence, then only the date is in parentheses.

…mosaic structure of habitats across a landscape (Connell, 1978).

Wilson (1992) and Kerr et al. (1998) have argued for the importance of …

Other publishers use a numbering system. Different science disciplines and different journals require variants of the forms shown below. Refer to handouts from faculty for specific guidelines.

[1] A.J. Silversmith et al., Phys. Rev. B 25 (2002) 3456. [authors, journal, vol. Number (year) page number.]
[2] Wilson, E.O. (1992). The Diversity of Life. NY: W.W. Norton Co.
[3] G. Jones and B. Collett, in: Nuclear Physics: Polarized 3He, ed. P. Millet (Springer, New York, 1999) pp 245-310.

Acknowledgements. EHW thanked Eugene Domack, Tom Jones, Ann Silversmith, Barb Tewksbury, Jon Vaughan, Sharon Williams, and Penny Yee for commenting on the initial version of this document and Emily Starr for contributing ideas.

Several writing bloopers to look out for .i

Issue | bad example | improvement
1) avoid needless complexity | utilization | use
2) avoid arrogant phrases | it is well known that…. | (omit)
3) use strong verbs | made a measurement of | measured
4) eliminate writing zeroes | as a matter of fact | (omit)

5) eliminate fat

at this point in time
at that point in time

now
then

i The Craft of Scientific Writing by Michael Alley is a good resource for these. There are many websites that focus on scientific writing that contain similar examples.

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Writing Resources - Writing in the Sciences - Hamilton College

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Science writing should be concise, however, “conciseness” does not necessarily mean “brevity” and accepted practices may vary among science disciplines.

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Guide to using inclusive language that keeps the identities of students in mind. Words matter because they can damage relationships and show disrespect (Julien 2018).

Examples of inclusive language include "low income" instead of "poor" and "students with disabilities" instead of "special needs."