How to provide students with the keys to success in science lessons

Language is the key to unlocking learning. When our students understand the language used to explain a concept or present an idea, they hold the key to learning. Unfortunately, not all learners possess these language skills – the keys are not handed out fairly.

At the start of primary school, the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers is 4.3 months. Worryingly, this gap more than doubles to 9.5 months at the end of primary school and, even worse, it doubles again by the end of secondary school, meaning disadvantaged school leavers are, on average, 19.3 months behind their peers.

Vocabulary is a major contributor to this attainment gap and its long-term implications for schooling, employment and mental health. As educators, an essential aspect of our role must be providing these language keys and, in doing so, we can go some way to closing this attainment gap. But where should we start? What language do our learners need?

At the start of primary school, the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers is 4.3 months. Worryingly, this gap more than doubles to 9.5 months at the end of primary school and, even worse, it doubles again by the end of secondary school, meaning disadvantaged school leavers are, on average, 19.3 months behind their peers, according to the Education Endowment Foundation’s 2017 Closing the attainment gap report.

Vocabulary is a major contributor to this attainment gap and its long-term implications for schooling, employment and mental health as Alex Quigley notes in his book, Closing the reading gap. As educators, an essential aspect of our role must be providing these language keys and, in doing so, we can go some way to closing this attainment gap. But where should we start? What language do our learners need?

A speech bubble filled with brightly-coloured letters

Source: © Ben Miners/Ikon Images

Literacy is a key part of science learning, and in secondary school science lessons, we’re building on primary school work

What words should we teach in science?

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) identified explicit vocabulary teaching as one of the seven key recommendations for improving secondary science. Vocabulary can be thought of as falling into three tiers: tier 1 represents high frequency, everyday spoken language; tier 3 represents subject-specific vocabulary; and tier 2 represents those words that fall in between – words used often largely in academic texts and that span a wide range of disciplines (Beck, McKeown and Kucan, Bringing words to life: robust vocabulary instruction).

All of us know that with each new topic in science comes new, subject-specific tier 3 vocabulary and this needs to be explicitly taught to students. However, tier 3 vocabulary alone may not be enough to unlock learning for those children who do not possess enough tier 2 language keys. In fact, pupils need to understand around 95% of words in a text to ensure reading comprehension. Therefore, it may be necessary to identify and teach certain tier 2 academic words which are essential for understanding scientific writing but which do not necessarily come from science.

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) identified explicit vocabulary teaching as one of the seven key recommendations for improving secondary science (rsc.li/3g5rP7n) in its guidance report. Vocabulary can be thought of as falling into three tiers: tier 1 represents high frequency, everyday spoken language; tier 3 represents subject-specific vocabulary; and tier 2 represents those words that fall in between – words used often largely in academic texts and that span a wide range of disciplines (see Beck, McKeown and Kucan’s book, Bringing words to life: robust vocabulary instruction).

All of us know that with each new topic in science comes new, subject-specific tier three vocabulary and this needs to be explicitly taught to students. However, tier three vocabulary alone may not be enough to unlock learning for those children who do not possess enough tier two language keys. In fact, pupils need to understand around 95% of words in a text to ensure reading comprehension, as Schmitt, Jiang and Grabe report in their paper, ‘The percentage of words known in a text and reading comprehension’ (bit.ly/3o8XzND). Therefore, it may be necessary to identify and teach certain tier two academic words which are essential for understanding scientific writing but which do not necessarily come from science.

We need to expose pupils to these words and this is best done through reading authentic scientific writing

To identify these words, you could start by reading exam questions that pupils will encounter and pick out words they may struggle with, such as acquire, distribute, consist and analyse. Another excellent place to start is Averil Coxhead’s Academic word list. The 60 words in sublist 1 give an idea about which words to teach for highest return.

To identify these words, you could start by reading exam questions that pupils will encounter and pick out words they may struggle with, such as acquire, distribute, consist and analyse. Another excellent place to start is Averil Coxhead’s Academic word list (bit.ly/32z8Saj). The 60 words in sub-list one give an idea about which words to teach for highest return.

To add another layer of language difficulty, science uses familiar words in science-specific ways and it is these words, rather than the tier three subject-specific words, which can cause the most trouble. It is vital to draw pupils’ attention to these tricky words and how their meaning differs in science. Random, emit, spontaneous and incident are all examples of everyday words with alternative meanings in science.

What words do pupils already know when they start secondary school?

The process of vocabulary teaching starts during the primary years. PLAN knowledge matrices is a useful, accessible (and free when you register) resource which provides an excellent vocabulary list for the multidisciplinary units taught in primary science.

The process of vocabulary teaching starts during the primary years. PLAN knowledge matrices is a useful, accessible and free resource which provides an excellent vocabulary list for the multidisciplinary units taught in primary science (bit.ly/3ACcBAy).

For example, in England in the primary science curriculum’s lower unit ‘States of matter’, pupils are taught solid, liquid, gas, state change, melting, freezing, melting point, boiling point, evaporation, temperature, water cycle and particles. Then in the following year’s unit ‘Properties and changes of materials’, they will come across thermal/electrical insulator/conductor, mixture, dissolve, solution, soluble, insoluble, filter, sieve, reversible/non-reversible change, burning, rusting and new material. Alongside these subject-specific words, pupils should be taught appropriate tier two words, such as data, estimate, method, structure, occur, theory and per cent.

How can we approach vocabulary teaching?

The first step in vocabulary teaching is identifying which words to teach – those tier 3 subject-specific words and the most useful tier 2 academic words that will help pupils access a text. We need to expose pupils to these words and this is best done through reading authentic scientific writing. This could be news articles or science writing in magazines and popular science books, not necessarily journal articles. However, reading alone is not enough to teach new vocabulary.

I recently delivered training to secondary science teachers using these approaches, but they are suitable for learners from age 7 to 18. Start by providing pupils with a student-friendly definition. Guide children to these definitions, as standard dictionaries can sometimes be confusing. Collins Online Dictionary is an excellent place to start, especially for tier two words. Next, provide sentences from scientific texts so pupils can see the word/s in context. Later activities can include pupils writing their own sentences which can be peer or teacher assessed.

Activities which encourage pupils to interact with the vocabulary include bingo (provide game sheets with various words, read out the definition or vice versa), creating and using flashcards or the Frayer model (read this fantastic blog for an explanation).

Activities which encourage pupils to interact with the vocabulary include bingo (provide game sheets with various words, read out the definition or vice versa), creating and using flashcards or the Frayer model (read Dave Gash’s fantastic blog for an explanation: bit.ly/3H5Lgca).

We cannot teach pupils all the words they will ever encounter, but we can start by carefully selecting which keys to give

Flashcards, especially when combined with dual coding, are a really powerful tool, not only for learning new words but also as a scaffold for scientific writing. Dual coding is the process where pupils include a pictorial representation of the word alongside the student-friendly definition. This is not an artistic contest, but a prompt to remind them of the meaning. The combination of picture and definition helps secure the word in long-term memory. They can also be fun too – when teaching evolution to my 10–11 year-old pupils we started each lesson with guessing the words based on my terrible drawings on the board. We progressed to using a series of (terrible) drawings to support our scientific writing about the process of evolution.

Pupils can also test each other or themselves using the Leitner system, where they place the cards into learned or revisit piles, then retest on the revisit pile.

Finally, helping pupils to identify morphemes (unit parts) within words will give them the tools to tackle related words when they come across them. Particularly useful examples include hypo/hyper, photo, exo/endo and therm.

As teachers, we cannot teach pupils all the words they will ever encounter, but we can start by carefully selecting which keys to give – those subject-specific keys that open tier three locks, and those tier two skeleton keys which can be used to unlock learning by understanding academic words in a range of contexts. The much-admired Hogwarts headteacher, Albus Dumbledore, said, ‘Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.’ By explicitly teaching vocabulary we can unlock learning for all learners and, in time, reduce the attainment gap. Wouldn’t that be magic.

Amy Halsall is an assistant headteacher, year 6 teacher and science lead at a small rural primary school in Lincolnshire and evidence lead in education for Kyra Research School