# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Do you struggle to fit science in every day? Or does your school district's curriculum not have enough content to make planning for science easy? I have been there friends! If you don't integrate science into other subjects, it can difficult to figure out how to help students master their science standards in a short science block.

It can also be so hard to sit down with your curriculum to plan for science and have to still search for read alouds, anchor charts, poems, and things for science journals like graphic organizers. It's so time-consuming! The good news is that have a simple solution for you - integrate science into balanced literacy.

Here are my favorite ways to integrate science into reading and writing to help you maximize your time throughout the day. If you want all of the science and literacy components in one place with a teaching plan, graphic organizers, anchor charts, science experiments, shared reading, and more, check out my science units HERE.

Integrate Science through Read Alouds

The first (and easiest!) way to integrate science into literacy is through read alouds. Read alouds build background knowledge for your students before you introduce a new topic. They can also provide visual support for your ELL students to be more successful. Finally, they can help you engage students in conversations about science using new vocabulary.

If you don't have a list of read alouds to use in science, don't worry. I've got you covered! Grab your FREE list of read aloud suggestions for the entire year HERE. This mega list is the only book list you'll need for science. It covers 39 different science topics.

Check out more about using read alouds in science HERE.

Shared Reading

Another way to integrate science into literacy is through shared reading. I could easily do a shared reading poem on the topic of what we were studying in science. First, I would choose a poem on the science topic - for example, dental health. Then we would use it during shared reading. For example, I would teach punctuation, sight words, decoding strategies, practice fluency, focus on a phonics pattern, and more!

Then at the end of the week, students would get a copy of the poem to put in their song and poem book to read independently in literacy stations. Another idea is to let kids glue the shared reading poem into a poetry journal.

You could also add poems from each week into a folder and put it in the classroom library. There are so many possibilities!

You can read more about how to implement shared reading HERE and find five teaching points for shared reading HERE.

Phonics Activities

As an extension of shared reading, my students completed phonics sorts. Each poem I used had a phonics sort that went with it.

First, we did the phonics sort as a whole group. Then, I would put it in a work station for students to do with a cut-and-paste recording page. You could also have them do the cut-and-paste sort during morning work. I could also use the sort again during guided reading if some of my students struggled with it.

Mini-Readers

Each weekly science unit also had a mini-book for my students to make. I usually put this in a bookmaking literacy station for my students to do. It was their own mini-reader on the science topic we had just learned about. They would make their own book (each page has something for them to do) and put it in their book boxes.

Then, they could read them again during literacy stations as independent reading or during morning work time, too.

Integrate Science and Writing

There are so many ways to integrate science and writing. These are a few of my favorite ways that work really well with primary students:

Graphic Organizers

If you are studying a unit like dental health, students can fill in a variety of graphic organizers to show their learning. For example, they can fill out a web/bubble map with facts about the dentist.

In kindergarten, students might be sharing ideas out loud, writing down their own ideas, and copying what you write from ideas shared out loud. In first and second grade, students are probably filling these graphic organizers out more on their own and sharing their thoughts after.

To turn this into a literacy station, you can have students read a science read aloud about a topic and then fill out a graphic organizer.

Flip Books

Another option is flip books. Flip books are a fun way to record learning in a unique way! You can have students read a book about a science topic, fill out a flip book, and glue it into their science journals.

Science Craftivities

Writing crafts on a science topic are a great option for a culminating activity that also serves as an assessment. For example, if we were studying reptiles, I would have students make an adorable alligator book. Then, inside of the book, students would write facts they had learned about alligators (or reptiles in general). I got to assess students' writing conventions, understanding of science standards, and have the perfect display for my classroom or the hallway.

Shared Writing and Interactive Writing

Two more great ways to integrate science into literacy is through shared writing and interactive writing. In case you need a refresher, shared writing is when the students talk and share ideas, and the teacher does the writing correctly. In interactive writing, both the teacher and students are talking and writing (usually correctly).

Anchor charts are a fantastic way to get some shared and interactive writing in. For example, if we were studying mammals, we might create two different anchor charts.

The first one might be a KWL chart where students share what they know about mammals and what they want to learn. Then we would fill out what they had learned at the end of the week or create a circle map where they share what they learned and how they learned those mammal facts.

Because I found that I was always squeezing science in everywhere I could to maximize my time during the day, I included each of these components in my science units. There are 38 units to have you covered for the entire year of science. Each unit has everything you need for science and these literacy components:

Read aloud suggestions

Shared reading poem

Phonics sort (pocket chart sort and cut-and-paste sort)

Mini-book

Graphic organizers and other writing opportunities

Writing Crafts (most units)

Teachers who are already using these science units with literacy components in their classrooms are saying,

"The bundle is absolutely amazing! I love how you integrated phonics, poetry, and reading comprehension into science, too. FABULOUS! A million thanks for making my job easier."

"It makes my job much less time-consuming! Incredible!"

This is why I created these resources: to save you time and to provide your students with quality, engaging lessons and activities that actually help them learn. Integrating science and literacy truly help drive home hard-to-teach science topics for students who might struggle.

You can buy each unit individually, save some money and buy a monthly bundle with four units, or save a ton and grab the year-long bundle with all of the units.

Grab yours to start saving time and energy on lesson planning and have everything you need in one place.

You can also watch my Facebook live video all about integrating science and literacy HERE. I shared what each of these literacy components looks like in one of my units.

Shop This Post:

Science UnitsEach unit has everything you'll need for science and literacy for a week of fun. The teaching plan makes lesson planning a breeze and the activities will engage students to help them master their science standards.

August Monthly Bundle: (Being a Scientist, Staying Healthy, Five Senses)

September Monthly Bundle: (Magnets, Apples, Matter, Fall)

October Monthly Bundle: (Forms of Energy, Spiders, Force and Motion, Bats)

November Monthly Bundle: (Pumpkins, Seasons, Turkeys, Weather)

December Monthly Bundle: (Reindeer, Mammals, Snow, Birds)

January Monthly Bundle: (Arctic, Penguins, Day and Night, Sun, Moon, and Stars)

February Monthly Bundle: (Reptiles, Amphibians, Dental Health, Soil, Rocks, and Water)

March Monthly Bundle: (Insects, Living and Nonliving, Plants)

April Monthly Bundle: (Farm, The 3 Rs, Life Cycles, Rainforests)

May Monthly Bundle: (Habitats, Ocean, Fish, Zoo)

Science Bundle for the Year This bundle has absolutely everything you'll need for science for the entire year. It's also the best price per unit!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Easily Integrate Science and Literacy {9 Ways}

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Do you struggle to fit science in every day? Or does your school district's curriculum not have enough content to make planning for science easy? I have been there friends! If you don't integrate science into other subjects, it can difficult to figure out how to help students master their science standards in a short science block.

# data[].attributes.body
This Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest video shows how to implement research-based literacy practices from the What Works Clearinghouse through play-based learning. In the video, preschool and kindergarten teachers use play-based learning in their classrooms to teach phonics, reading comprehension, and more. They also address common barriers to implementing play-based learning. In addition, the video includes an overview of play-based learning; a discussion of the benefits of play-based learning; and interviews with teachers, researcher Sarah Caverly, PhD, and literacy expert Tim Shanahan, PhD.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Integrating Play Into Literacy Instruction: Strategies For Your Classroom (REL Midwest)

# data[].attributes.body
STEAM and Literacy don’t have to be on opposite sides of the education fence.  They truly do work hand in hand to deepen learning for students and to encourage exploration and a creative mindset!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
The Institute for Arts Integration and STEAM

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Susan Riley | September 2017

One of the things that confounds teachers about STEAM is whether or not literacy is a part of the approach. After all, STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Math. What about reading and writing? Do we just drop them completely, or do we move to something else and call it STREAM (adding "reading" into the acronym)? And then... aren't we back to teaching everything?

These are all excellent questions. And the answers come down to two deep understandings:

1. Literacy is a part of every content area - always. You can be literate in math, art, reading, social studies, music and science. Literacy is an action with common components that are embedded into how we consume and share information. As such, it is naturally a part of STEAM.

2. STEAM is the intentional alignment of standards within these identified content areas and includes equitable assessment of both areas in the lesson. It's guided by inquiry and is focused on application, creation and evaluation. Adding another letter isn't the point.

With those understandings in mind, there are many ways to integrate literacy and STEAM intentionally in your classroom. Here are some examples that you may find helpful in your planning for this year.

Visual Thinking

Utilizing visual thinking is drawing upon the foundation of literacy itself. You can read a piece of art or music, the same way you can read a piece of traditional text. Visual thinking strategies are a terrific way to introduce this concept to your students and to practice literacy across all content areas.

A well-known VTS is looking at a piece of text (arts, fiction, informational, etc) and asking these three questions:

1. What's going on in this text/image/process?

2. What do you see/hear that makes you say that?

3. What more can we find?

The foundation to visual thinking is in the questions that are asked and in listening to student responses. These are also the hallmarks of STEAM, so visual thinking and literacy makes sense.

Here are some additional Visual Thinking resources to help you get started:
OpenThink: Visual Thinking Strategies 10 Visual Thinking Literacy Strategies The Visual Thinking Strategies Website
Embodying Text

Being able to make personal meaning requires moving from the abstract to the literal. Many of the STEM areas deal with abstract concepts which are hard to visualize or feel. This can be done quickly and easily through movement. Using dance as a tool to explore a concept and then translate that into a literal interpretation is a form of writing. Just because it's done with the body doesn't make it any less of a composition.

Here are some specific strategies that use dance composition as a medium for STEAM:
Inspiring Dance Literacy
Reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal teaching is all about using comprehension strategies to have formal conversations about text. If the text is a piece of art, or if it's a scientific finding, the reciprocal teaching strategy will work regardless of content. Here's the steps you need:

Start by asking students to predict an outcome based on a problem, process, or artistic prompt. Then, ask some guiding questions and encourage your students to ask each other questions about the work. Students can then point out elements of the problem, process, or arts prompt that they don't understand. They can then research answers to these questions and summarize their findings. This strategy is often used to analyze traditional text and is a core component of literacy, but can easily be applied to any content area.

STEAM and Literacy don't have to be on opposite sides of the education fence. They truly do work hand in hand to deepen learning for students and to encourage exploration and a creative mindset !

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Susan Riley | September 2017 3 Ways To Integrate Literacy and STEAM One of the things that confounds teachers about STEAM is whether or not literacy is a part of the approach. After all, STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering,

# data[].attributes.body
Better Literacy = Better STEAM Learning

Both Common Core and NGSS emphasize the importance of speaking, listening and communicating about mathematical and scientific concepts. Integrating literacy tools into STEAM subjects does more than help students and teachers fulfill objectives. Better literacy helps students identify and more thoroughly understand key concepts. With teachers' help, they can build on these skills to explore on their own, master subjects, and continue to use these skills wherever they go in their educational career and beyond.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Best Practices

Integrating Literacy into STEAM Lessons

Both Common Core and NGSS emphasize the importance of speaking, listening and communicating about mathematical and scientific concepts. Integrating literacy tools into STEAM subjects does more than help students and teachers fulfill objectives. Better literacy helps students identify and more thoroughly understand key concepts.

When I first started teaching middle school science, I noticed that many children approached reading from two extremes.

On one end of the spectrum, some would read through a piece and struggle to achieve any understanding at all. On the other end, students would highlight nearly the entire text and sometimes rewrite it word for word as they took "notes." In both cases, they were unable to identify important points. The struggling readers didn't understand enough to pick out basic ideas, and the heavy-highlighters needed a better filter to separate the important concepts from the rest of the text.

Students' writing often reflected their struggles with reading. The writing samples for these students would be vague, unclear, or demonstrate a lack of understanding.

As I identified these challenges, I realized I wasn't just in the classroom to teach science, but to teach students how to read about it, learn about it, and even pick it apart.

Today, after teaching middle school physics, chemistry and astronomy for 10 years, I'm an instructional coach supporting teachers in both Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Common Core and NGSS require teachers to integrate literacy into their lessons, and that's a good thing. Students need to know how to communicate about science and math to truly master the concepts.

Connecting Literacy and STEAM

Most teachers agree that better literacy skills lead to better STEAM learning. But putting concrete skill-building tasks into practice can be difficult. Here are some ways that I work with teachers to integrate reading and writing tools into STEAM lessons.

1. Add to your resource list. Build your own library of age-appropriate materials such as online news sites, magazines and journals. Look for resources that demonstrate real-world implications of student lessons. Videos are OK, but interactive resources can easily be found on the internet. My district also uses the K-5 curriculum from TCI's Bring Science Alive!that has engaging, live-classroom activities as well as online simulations. The curriculum will be available for grades 6-8 in fall of 2017.

2. Try humor and fiction. Science isn't always dry non-fiction. The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean is a fascinating and often funny behind-the-scenes look at the scientists who contributed to the periodic table. The Giants of Science: Isaac Newton by Kathleen Krull is an excellent biography that makes teaching physics more engaging and accessible. Graphic novels are another popular resource, such as The Solid Truth about States of Matter with Max Axiom by Agnieszka Biskup.

3. Ask questions first and then read. To help students get a better understanding of key concepts, have them skim an article and form questions based on the titles, subheadings and photos they see. Have them try to answer the questions on their own before they start reading. Bring Science Alive! also has activities and examples of how to conduct a "scavenger hunt" that requires students to identify features and structures that might give clues to what they're going to learn before they start reading.

1. Use graphic organizers. Before students write anything, particularly a lab report, it's helpful to have them use a graphic organizer. Many graphic organizers include elements like sentence frames or sentence starters to help students focus their thoughts into written words. If they've never used a graphic organizer before, demonstrate the entire process of how information in a graphic organizer is eventually turned into a report.

2. Advance inquiry skills. Asking great questions is essential for better writing. Bring Science Alive! allows teachers to supply students with multiple questions or writing prompts that learners can choose and own. These online question-and-answer activities often spark more in-depth conversations while allowing students to practice writing meaningfully about STEAM subjects.

3. Have students be the teachers. Consider assigning a unit project where teams of students present a lesson for a related topic. Students can design essential questions, create handouts, and co-create a lesson assessment for their peers. Teaching to the class requires them to write and communicate information in a highly digestible way. It also gets students interacting with one another and advancing scientific discussions.

Better Literacy = Better STEAM Learning

Both Common Core and NGSS emphasize the importance of speaking, listening and communicating about mathematical and scientific concepts. Integrating literacy tools into STEAM subjects does more than help students and teachers fulfill objectives. Better literacy helps students identify and more thoroughly understand key concepts. With teachers' help, they can build on these skills to explore on their own, master subjects, and continue to use these skills wherever they go in their educational career and beyond.

About the Author

Ann Lorey is a middle school Common Core and science coach in the Palo Alto Unified School District.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
integrating common core into steam education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
next generation science standards best practices

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Integrating Literacy into STEAM Lessons -- THE Journal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Both Common Core and NGSS emphasize the importance of speaking, listening and communicating about mathematical and scientific concepts. Integrating literacy tools into STEAM subjects does more than help students and teachers fulfill objectives. Better literacy helps students identify and more thoroughly understand key concepts.