This book gives strategies on how a science teacher can utilizing things such as using an activity to boost oral language can be a benefit to all students but also a benefit those with exceptionalities. 

There are four different types of vocabulary: reading, writing, listening, and speaking (Wollacott, 2022). There are also two ways to learn vocabulary: explicit (direct) and implicit (indirect) (Nezhad et al., 2015). 
 

 _{National Institute for Literacy. (2007). Adapted from What Content-Area Teachers Should Know About Adolescent Literacy. National Institute for Literacy. https://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/adolescent_literacy07.pd}f

 Most of the time, people assume that phonics is strictly reserved to teaching in elementary or to English language learners. However, there is evidence that phonics is still integral in the middle school classroom. Without proper phonics instruction, students can display struggles with decoding, morphology, etymology, and ultimately fluency (Altani et al. 2020). This can have a negative impact on academic achievement regardless of the content area (Uysal and Bilge 2018). Planning instruction to middle grades learners in regards to more advanced words by teachers will ultimately benefit the comprehension between the students and the content given. 

 One can consider this to be the second stage of the systematics phonics process where advanced phonics instruction is introduced (Bowers 2020). Four areas that middle school teachers can focus on in reads to phonics instruction to their students are:

·       Affixes

·       Greek and Latin Roots

·       Etymology

·       Syllabication Patterns

 (1)    Accuracy – Essentially a student needs to be able to read the words correctly. Stumbling over words and messing them up can disrupt fluency and the comprehension learning process. The best way to work through this with middle school learners is teaching them the ability to decode a word utilizing the text that is located next to it. (Jerry L. Johns Literacy Center).

(2)    Speed – Fluent readers have the ability to read the passage at a greater speed rather than those who are struggling readers. The easy of being able to read the text at a good pace can be dependent on multiple factors. One strategy to use with middle school readers can be the use of colorful overlays – plastic sheets with colors over specific parts of the text to reduce eye strain and confusion of lines/words to be able to read at a better pace (Wilkins 2003). 

(3)    Expression – One way to help struggling learners is to teach them the expression of words, or how the words sound when spoken verbally. Fluent readers can read each word with some sort of expression in mind, for example – if you read this sentence as a fluent reader how would you express it – “Hey! Put down that remote control right now, or you will suffer the most severe consequences!”

(4)    Comprehension – The final part of being a fluent reader is being able to comprehend what you are reading. This is the bridge that some consider from learning to read to reading to learn. In the aspect of comprehension in the middle school classroom, literacy should be in all disciplines and articles can be found on almost any subject online to be used by instructors that might even include comprehension questions. 

1) Activating background knowledge – According to the schema theory, students need to build knowledge before reading because what students know influences how they learn (Lupo et al., 2017). When students have more prior knowledge before, they read, their understanding is better because it activates pockets of information that is then keyed as important and creates a relationship between the two. 

2) Questioning/Summarizing – The ability for students to be able to accurately summarize a text as well as answer open-ended type questions shows more comprehension for a text rather than attempting to just answer a multiple-choice question (Wexler et al., 2022). Questioning can be in the form of discussion, questioning by the teacher or peers, or through assessments. Summarizing can be completed in a variety of forms as well based on content area. 

3) Self-Monitoring – Literature review shows that students who can self-monitor, reflect, and revise their learning, that there is a greater chance of comprehension. This can be done in the form of visuals such as a reading cues bookmark or self-correcting strategies (Pratt & Urbanowski, 2015). This must be modeled by the teacher first before students have the ability to monitor on their own. 

4) Analyzing – Especially for middle grades learners, an aspect of comprehension is the ability to analyze a complex text through making inferences about what they are reading. This can be done in the form of writing, graphic organizers, and discussions (Guiterrez de Blume et al., 2021). 

 As educators, it is important to understand the basic four types of vocabulary (Blachowicz et al., 2013):

 We then utilize two different approaches in order to understand the words within the context of these four types of vocabulary:

 Utilizing a combination of approaches and the strategies that are within them is the key for students to understand the vocabulary and building up to being able to full comprehend the text that they are reading (Alamri & Rogers, 2018).   

The types of skills that students develop in terms of writing include:

 Therefore, it is necessary to look at the research to see what other instructors or researchers have done with those who have exceptionalities in teaching phonics and then figure out how to include that into your instruction as a process for the universal design for learning and meeting those learners with equity. One example of this is utilizing a special curriculum called the ALL curriculum that increases letter-sound association and was studied among those with autism and intellectual disabilities (Ainsworth et al. 2016). 

 The first, The Effects of the Language! Literacy Instruction on the Reading Comprehension and Motivation to Read of Struggling Middle School Readers, is a dissertation of utilization of a specific program compared to traditional literacy teaching. It gives the ability to obtain resources through its literature review to help with strategies as well as seeing first-hand how differentiation in the terms of curriculum effectively increased the potential of comprehension of struggling readers. 

 The second, Reading Comprehension: Assisting Children with Learning Difficulties, is a book that breaks down a model to classify strategies that focus on working memory and its function with comprehension that is effective especially with children with exceptionalities but can be applied to both struggling readers as well as the general education population. 

 _{Barrier-Ferreira, J. (2010). The effects of the Language! Literacy instruction on the reading comprehension and motivation to read of struggling middle school readers (Publication No. 10616809). [Doctoral dissertation, Western Connecticut State University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.}

Although these skills are considered a differentiation of learning, the universal design for learning tells us that we need to apply supports to ALL students. For equity, these students will have more support but those in the general classroom could also benefit from these strategies as well.   

 
1)      Affixes – On Teachers Pay Teachers, creator “Pope A Lope” has a free download of science affixes cards that students can use to help memorize and then play a memory matching game with them, challenging their peers on who can correctly match them all the fastest. URL: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Prefix-Suffix-cards-for-Language-of-science-activity-2796247?st=f5aaafe92d2b93402ced80832f7ac551 

2)      Greek and Latin Roots -Kaely James created a Youtube video on how you can utilize different colored Legos to match Greek and Latin roots to create words in science. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVDITVFzRyY 

3)      Etymology – To learn the etymology as well as practice any spellings of words, one journal article suggests playing a game of Etymology Throw a Ball. A ball is thrown to a random student. The announcer will then read the word and share its origin by showing it on a card. The person with the ball attempts to spell the word based on patterns they learned based on that origin. After revision, that student can throw the ball to another randomly to keep all students engaged (Dilgard & Hodges 2022).  

4)      Syllabication – Have the students practice more of the complicated science words by creating a syllables worksheet. The student will read the words and them categorize them by the number of syllables. An example can be found here: https://www.havefunteaching.com/resource/format/worksheets/science-syllables-worksheet/ 

 
_{Dilgard, C., & Hodges, T.S. (2022). Leveraging Literacy Centers for Phonics and Fluency Skill Building in Middle School. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas. 95(1). 7-17}

 Even though we want our classrooms to have a student-centered approach, the main role of a teacher in regard to fluency is to incorporate what an article calls “teacher talk” (Oyoo 2015). This is where the instructor stops and carefully crafts how to define specific science vocabulary and their meanings within the context of a lesson. With getting used to these complicated words in science, then a student can be more fluent when reading a scientific text. 

1) Activating background knowledge – Facilitating a simulation or phenomenon to stimulate discussion amongst students to establish the foundation of the science concept as well as be a ‘hook’ for the topic ahead (Ferlazzo, 2020). For example, facilitating a discussion on the phenomenon question of how something can act like a mirror and a window at the same time to assess background knowledge of the concepts of reflection and refraction. 

2) Questioning/Summarizing – Sometimes the simplest of strategies like summarizing can be difficult when it comes to content areas other than ELA. Teachers need to understand and be ale to teach a process for students to be able to understand the proper expectations of summarizing an article. For example, Kelly is a middle school teacher who writes a blog called “Super Sass and Science Class” who gives great strategies on how to teach your students how to properly summarize a text. 

3) Self-Monitoring – Self-monitoring can be a simple and effective tool to help students reflect on their own progress. The trick is making it a routine that the students can stick too (Mezies et al., 2009). The following is a journal article that assists with coming up with self-monitoring procedures such as a common area for the self-monitoring sheet to be for consistency: https://tinyurl.com/yyb3hy9d 

4) Analyzing – The best way to approach comprehension in the way of analyzing the text is to model this ability with students directly. This can be done through modes of inquiry as well as think alouds. Edutopia has a document that talks about strategies to model literacy analysis that can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/ykts4r3j 

 
_{Ferlazzo, L. (2020, June 15). The whys & hows of activating students’ background knowledge. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-the-whys-hows-of-activating-students-background-knowledge/2020/06} 

The foundational introduction of scientific writing includes:

 Allowing for more writing within the science classroom helps students to become strong writers as well giving more deeper meaning to scientific thinking and literacy (Nguyen, 2022). Good strategies to utilize for writing in the science classroom are: