Getting to grips with the constituent parts of words can promote students’ understanding and use of scientific language

‘Biology is not plants and animals. It is language about plants and animals … Astronomy is not planets and stars. It is a way of talking about planets and stars,’ wrote Neil Postman in Teaching as a Conserving Activity (1979). This quote is a particular favourite of mine as it highlights the importance of the scientific language we use as teachers to explain the natural world to our students.

Throughout my teaching career I have been fascinated by the complex language of science and as a fledgling science teacher I was the KS3 science literacy coordinator. Cue many hours collating science words and definitions. It was then that I became aware of how students had to learn the meanings of an inordinate number of words just to be able to access the science they were learning.

So how can we introduce key vocabulary in science? Many of us display keywords at the beginning of a lesson, and encourage students to write down the meaning of the words. However, this can take a considerable amount of time and, with the pressure to teach content and concepts, we can feel limited in the time we can allocate to this.

I would also argue this is not always the best way to embed deep understanding of a word and help students become fluent in the language of science. However, building a greater understanding of the structure and origin of words can support the learning of new vocabulary, and aid understanding of science more generally.

Illustration of female student with cable in her hand, blocks of Greek/Latin root words on her right, blocks of English science related words on here left; the cables link the Greek/Latin origins to the English words

Source: © Claudia Flandoli

The structure of words

Morphology is the study of the different parts of a word: prefix, root, suffix.

Prefix – appears at the beginning of the word, eg hypo- (below), hyper- (above), cyclo- (ring), poly- (many), endo- (within), exo- (outside of).

Root – words that have a meaning standing alone. They often form the longest part of a word. Science vocabulary often has Greek or Latin roots, eg chloro (green), iso (equal), allo (other), com (together)

Suffix – appears at the end of the word and provides additional information, eg -ane (saturated hydrocarbon), -phillic (love, affection), -phobic (hate, fear), -lysis (decompose, breakdown).

Help students to get to grips with new words by breaking them down into their constituent parts. Point out links between new words and vocabulary that is already familiar. Support students to see how the words themselves link to the concepts they describe.

7 simple rules to boost science teaching

Click to expand and explore the rules

Build on the ideas that pupils bring to lessons

  1. Understand the preconceptions that pupils bring to science lessons
  2. Develop pupils’ thinking through cognitive conflict and discussion
  3. Allow enough time to challenge misconceptions and change thinking

Help pupils direct their own learning

  1. Explicitly teach pupils how to plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning
  2. Model your own thinking to help pupils develop their metacognitive and cognitive knowledge
  3. Promote metacognitive talk and dialogue in the classroom

Use models to support understanding

  1. Use models to help pupils develop a deeper understanding of scientific concepts
  2. Select the models you use with care
  3. Explicitly teach pupils about models and encourage pupils to critique them

Support pupils to retain and retrieve knowledge

  1. Pay attention to cognitive load—structure tasks to limit the amount of new information pupils need to process
  2. Revisit knowledge after a gap to help pupils retain it in their long-term memory
  3. Provide opportunities for pupils to retrieve the knowledge that they have previously learnt
  4. Encourage pupils to elaborate on what they have learnt

Use practical work purposefully and as part of a learning sequence

  1. Know the purpose of each practical activity
  2. Sequence practical activities with other learning
  3. Use practical work to develop scientific reasoning
  4. Use a variety of approaches to practical science

Develop scientific vocabulary and support pupils to read and write about science

  1. Carefully select the vocabulary to teach and focus on the most tricky words
  2. Show the links between words and their composite parts
  3. Use activities to engage pupils with reading scientific text and help them to comprehend it
  4. Support pupils to develop their scientific writing skills

Use structured feedback to move on pupils’ thinking

  1. Find out what your pupils understand
  2. Think about what you’re providing feedback on
  3. Provide feedback as comments rather than marks
  4. Make sure pupils can respond to your feedback

Etymology

Knowing the word origin or etymology of a term can also help to identify its roots and can make it is easier to understand its use in science. They might also be related to common terms students use in everyday life. A useful approach is to look at different families of words, for example:

  • Thermometer
  • Exothermic
  • Endothermic
  • Thermal
  • Geothermal
  • Thermoregulation
  • Thermistor

All these words come from the Greek root word ‘therm’ meaning heat, therefore they are related to heat.

By highlighting the links to the root words students can develop a deeper understanding of vocabulary in science.

Defining the roots of photosynthesis is possibly one of the most discussed examples, as illustrated in this video clip.

In your class

Download a worksheet on word parts as MS Word or pdf. 

Strategies to teach unfamiliar scientific vocabulary

  1. Say the word to students using its correct pronunciation – quite tricky at times as a Northerner living in London!
  2. Write it on the board – it is vital to write it out clearly, and I get students to write the word larger than usual and leave plenty of space around it.
  3. Break the word down into its parts – I use different coloured pens for this.
  4. Repeat the word one more time emphasising the different parts of the word – I get the students to chant out loud along with me so they can sound out the words correctly.
  5. Discuss the etymology of the word – it is useful if you can link the word to everyday language that the students are familiar with.
  6. Give an example sentence using the word – ask students to write their own sentences using the new words they’ve learned.
  7. Regularly reinforce the new vocabulary by revisiting it – use word games, such as bingo, hot seat and dominoes, or set spelling tests.

This article is part of the series 7 simple rules for science teaching, developed in response to the EEF’s Improving secondary science guidance. It supports rule 6b, Show the links between words and their composite parts.

 

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