Science
Vocabulary
for All
Strategies to improve
vocabulary in an
inclusive biology class
Alison C. Shook, Michael Hazelkorn,
and Elizabeth R. Lozano
T
eaching new biology concepts to ninth graders can
be tough, and teaching students with disabilities
even tougher—but we are accountable for all
students. Teachers in this situation might find
themselves asking: How do I get my students to understand
the concepts when they don’t even understand the basic
vocabulary? How do I provide opportunities for my students
with disabilities to interact effectively with their peers?
We used a cooperative learning strategy called Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) in an inclusive ninth-grade
biology class to see whether we could “hook” students and,
at the same time, improve their scientific vocabulary. This
article describes our experience.
Cooperative learning strategies
Without a clear understanding of the language of science,
students are likely to have difficulty with science content.
To increase literacy in science, students must learn how to
derive the meaning of unfamiliar words (Blohm 2007).
Providing them with vocabulary strategies can significantly
support their understanding of and interest in the language
of science—this is particularly true for students with learning
disabilities (LD), who experience academic difficulty with
reading, writing, reasoning, and organizing information.
Cooperative learning strategies involve groups of students
at different ability levels, who work together and use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding
of a subject (Klingner et al. 2004). These strategies can be
effective for all types of students because they promote learning and foster respect and friendship among diverse groups
of students (Colorín Colorado 2007). Cooperative learning
also provides science teachers with alternative methods to
traditional classroom arrangements of lecture, demonstrations, and independent study.
CSR
CSR is a cooperative learning strategy that enhances students’ understanding of text by improving their vocabulary
(Vaughn, Klingner, and Bryant 2001); students contribute
to their groups, feel successful, and get the help they need
with their reading. CSR addresses three problems often
found in high school classrooms—it
includes students with disabilities in text-related
learning,
u teaches text-comprehension strategies that facilitate
students’ learning from expository text, and
u provides opportunities for students with
disabilities to interact effectively with their peers
(Klingner et al. 2004).
u
We decided to test this strategy in our inclusive ninth-grade
biology class to help all of our students enhance their science
vocabulary and increase their interest in science.
March 2011
45
Te a c h e r p re p
Figure 1
Vocabulary review handout.
Rules
1. You will be assigned to a group by the teacher
and will remain in this group for the remainder
of the sessions.
2. You will review vocabulary with your group
using teacher-made note cards.
3. You will take an individual vocabulary test on
Thursdays after the last review session.
Student roles
1. Leader: This student leads the group in the
implementation of Collaborative Strategic
Reading (CSR) by telling the group what to read
next and asking the teacher for assistance, if
necessary. He or she gathers materials, makes
sure group members are doing their jobs, and
reports if group members are not doing them.
2. Clunk expert: This student reminds the group of
the steps to follow when figuring out a difficult
word or concept.
3. Announcer: This student holds the vocabulary
note cards and calls on different group members
to read or share an idea. He or she makes sure
everyone in the group participates.
4. Encourager: This student watches the group
and gives positive feedback and comments to
students in the group. He or she also reports
how many words each student gets correct.
5. Reporter: This student records the words
the group knows and the words the group is
struggling with or does not know, and writes
down the statements made by the encourager.
During the whole-class wrap-up, he or she
reports the main ideas the group has learned.
6. Timekeeper: This student sets the timer for each
portion of CSR and lets the group know when it
is time to move on. (This role can also by played
by the teacher.)
Method
Twenty-six students (14 males and 12 females) in our biology
class participated in our study. Seven students received special
education services: six with LD and one with Other Health
Impairment. Two of us taught this inclusive biology class: One
with 28 years of teaching experience and a master’s degree in
secondary science education, the other with 5 years of experience and a master’s degree in special education. Our class met
five times a week for 90 minutes each period.
46
The Science Teacher
We used CSR as a way for students to review class material
in groups after weekly teacher-led classroom instruction.
Prior to implementing CSR, we familiarized ourselves with
this strategy. We also prepared materials with vocabulary
specific to the science units in our biology textbook and the
words and definitions in the End-of-Course Test (EOCT)
Review Guide. We picked 20 vocabulary words from each
unit and the CSR review sessions to include in the weekly
quizzes. We then prepared note cards for each vocabulary
word and its definition.
S t u d e n t g ro u ps
In CSR, students are assigned particular roles to play
within their groups. They serve as the leader, clunk expert,
announcer, encourager, reporter, or timekeeper (Figure 1).
Roles are rotated weekly so that students can perform each
role at least once. In our class, some roles were combined
(e.g., the announcer also served as the clunk expert), and we
acted as the timekeeper for all groups.
CSR strategies
CSR has multiple steps, in which students use four strategies:
1. preview,
2. click and clunk,
3. get the gist, and
4. wrap up and review.
Prior to reading the lesson, students use the preview strategy:
They brainstorm or discuss what they already know about the
topic and predict what they will learn from the reading.
While reading the text, students use the click strategy to
refer to portions that make sense to them and the clunk strategy to refer to portions they do not understand. (A strategy
“clicks” if they get it, and “clunks” if they do not.) They then
use the get the gist strategy to identify and summarize the
most important ideas in various sections of the text.
After reading the entire text, students use the wrap up and
review strategy to review all they have learned about the topic
and formulate questions and answers about their learning.
In a lesson on cell structure, for example, students are given
the following portion of text:
Both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells have commonalities. These commonalities include a plasma membrane
and cytoplasm. Eukaryotes contain membrane-bound
organelles; prokaryotes do not have organelles, such as
mitochondria or chloroplasts.
Using the preview strategy, students look at the headings
and illustrations to get an idea of the passage’s content. They
then read the passage and apply the click strategy to infor-
Science Vocabulary for All
Figure 2
Quiz: Living cells.
Word bank A:
combustion
specialized
tissues
cell division
chloroplasts
ATP
lysosomes
vacuole cell walls
Golgi
11. Plant cells usually have a large liquid-filled vacuole.
12.Photosynthesis takes place in the organelles called chloroplasts.
13.The organelle called the Golgi body is where proteins are sorted out.
14.Food vacuoles combine with lysosomes and then release enzymes to break food down into nutrients.
15.The energy from sugars is stored inside molecules of ATP, or adenosine triphosphate.
16.Combustion is a process that is similar to cellular respiration.
17.Some cells in the bodies of multicellular organisms are specialized to carry out specific tasks.
18.Tissues are layers of similar cells that carry out a certain function.
19.One cell creates two cells by a process of cell division.
10.Wood is a material found in the cell walls of tree cells.
Word bank B:
membrane
nucleus
wall
ribosomes
mitochondria
chromatin
cell membrane
eukaryotes
prokaryotes
endoplasmic reticulum
11. Protoplasm is enclosed in a skin-like cell membrane.
12.Plant cells have a thick outer layer called a cell wall.
13.Messages from DNA are translated into proteins by specific organelles called ribosomes.
14.Energy from sugars is released inside organelles called mitochondria.
15.The protoplasm of eukaryote cells is divided into cytoplasm around a rounded nucleus.
16.The plasma membrane, which helps control what enters or leaves a cell, is also referred to as the
cell membrane.
17.The endoplasmic reticulum is a complex network of passageways used to modify, package, and transport proteins, among other functions.
18.Organisms such as plants and animals, whose cells contain nuclei, are eukaryotes.
19.DNA is found in the chromatin.
20. Primitive organisms such as bacteria, that do not have cell nuclei, are prokaryotes.
March 2011
47
Figure 3
Intervention scores.
mation that makes sense to them, such as the passage that
states “There are two different kinds of cells: eukaryotes and
prokaryotes.” They use the clunk strategy to develop understanding of unfamiliar terms, such as “organelles.” Looking
at the passage, students can determine that organelles are
parts of some cells and not others. In wrap up and review,
they might make generalizations about organelles and what
types of cells contain them—making connections to prior
knowledge about cell nuclei and cell division.
In our inclusive biology class, we trained students to use
CSR for three consecutive days, for 30 minutes each day. On the
first day, we talked students through the strategy step by step.
On the second, though still not proficient, students knew their
roles (e.g., leader, clunk expert, announcer, encourager, reporter,
timekeeper) and needed less guidance. On the third day, they
were able to implement the strategy independently.
After training, we gave students a handout describing
each role (Figure 1, p. 46) and assigned them their role for
the week.
Implementing CSR
We implemented CSR on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 30
minutes of the 90-minute block for eight weeks and divided
each CSR period into three 10-minute sessions. We gave
students a two-minute break between each session to reor48
The Science Teacher
ganize their vocabulary cards.
During the first two 10-minute
CSR sessions, students used written
materials, including their vocabuKeywords: Eukaryotic cells
lary note cards. During the third at www.scilinks.org
session of each period, students Enter code: TST031102
were not allowed to use these note
cards. The cards served as a preassessment for students—
they showed which terms students understood and which
remained “clunks.”
Students took their vocabulary quizzes on Thursdays after
the final CSR session. These quizzes helped us assess students’
ability to define the week’s science vocabulary words. Each
quiz (Figure 2, p. 47) consisted of 20 fill-in-the-blank questions in which the definitions of the words were provided
and students had to choose the correct terms. Terms were
listed in a word bank at the top of each page.
Results
Each of the 20 items on a quiz was worth 5 points, for a total possible score of 100 points per quiz. Since students with
disabilities often have lower achievement levels (Chudowsky
and Chudowsky 2009), we looked at student scores in three
different ways. First, we looked at the weekly average quiz
grade for all students. Second, we looked at the weekly aver-
Science Vocabulary for All
age score for students without disabilities. Third, we looked at
the weekly average score for students with disabilities.
For the three-week period prior to implementing CSR,
the average baseline quiz score for the whole class was 75
points. After the three-week introductory period and five
weeks of CSR, the average score was 93.85 (average score
for students with disabilities, 93.57; for students without
disabilities, 94.00; Figure 3.) Students without disabilities
increased their quiz scores by 13 points, and students with
disabilities increased their scores by 34 points. Using Wilk’s
Lambda, the data show significant differences in quiz scores
for both groups of students (effect size = 0.83).
Conclusion
The median vocabulary quiz scores increased for the whole
class, and for students with and without disabilities. Our
study found a positive correlation between implementation
of CSR and substantially improved vocabulary quiz scores.
Though some improvement was expected, the results exceeded our expectations: They suggest that students with
LD can achieve at the same level as general education students when using the CSR strategy and that they can successfully be included in class activities.
Not only did students’ vocabulary scores increase, but
their social skills also improved. Students’ assigned groups
allowed them to work with peers they may never have chosen to work with. Student and teacher perceptions of CSR
changed during the eight weeks of our survey, as well. At
first, students were reluctant to try the strategy. One student
reported that “the strategy w[ould] take time away from
doing other things like labs.” Other students thought the
strategy would be too much work and did not want to be
put into assigned groups.
But by the end of the eight weeks, students wanted to
continue using CSR. One student said, “My grades went up,
and I wasn’t sitting at my desk the whole time reviewing
boring vocabulary. I was in a group and socializing.”
We were initially reluctant to use this strategy due to the
time it would take to make the materials, teach the strategy,
and implement it. There was also concern that adding CSR
would take away from instructional time. However, even
after only three weeks, we noticed slight improvements on
vocabulary test scores and were surprised at students’ ability
to understand the strategy and correctly follow all of the procedures in a short amount of time. The use of this strategy did
not take away from instructional time. Rather, instructional
time increased as students were able to understand concepts
more quickly.
At the end of the research, we were impressed with the
increase in students’ vocabulary quiz scores. One of us, the
general education teacher, even commented that “students
caught onto the strategy rather well, and the increase in
vocabulary test scores will increase their knowledge of the
content and hopefully increase their EOCT scores, as well.”
Once we saw the positive social interaction among students
and the increase in vocabulary scores, we were pleased with
the use of CSR in our classroom.
Our principal commended us for the vocabulary quiz
scores of our students. He noticed an increase in their
EOCT scores and in the overall averages of students in our
class. He told other teachers in the school about the strategy
and its positive results. The results were so encouraging that
we continued to use the strategy with the class even after
we had completed our research.
Though it is easier to implement CSR in an inclusive
classroom with coteachers, the strategy can be used by any
single teacher. However, it might be helpful if another
teacher, paraprofessional, or parent volunteer participates
during the training and first week of strategies. Once students
know how to use CSR, they can implement and monitor it
themselves—and increase science learning for all! ■
Alison C. Shook ([email protected]) is an academic coach
at Haralson County Schools in Tallapoosa, Georgia; Michael
Hazelkorn ([email protected]) is a professor in the
Department of Special Education and Speech Language
Pathology at the University of West Georgia in Carrollton;
and Elizabeth R. Lozano ([email protected]) is a
teacher at Newnan High School in Newnan, Georgia.
NSTA connections
For more information on cell structure, check out the “Cell Structure and Function: The Cellular Factory” NSTA Science Object.
NSTA Science Objects are online, inquiry-based content modules for
teachers that are free of charge. For more information, visit http://
learningcenter.nsta.org/products/science_objects.aspx.
References
Blohm, C. 2007. Dynamic literacy’s vocabulary curriculum
increases science comprehension for students. www.dynami
cliteracy.com/Media/Press%20%20Release/11-26-2007.php
Chudowsky, N., and V. Chudowsky. 2009. State test score
trends through 2007–08, Part 4: Has progress been
made in raising achievement for students with disabilities? Center on Education Policy. www.cep-dc.org/index.
cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=496&parentID=481
Colorín Colorado. 2007. Cooperative learning strategies. http://
livesite.colorincolorado.org/educators/content/cooperative
Klingner, J., S. Vaughn, M. Arguelles, M. Hughes, and S. Leftwich. 2004. Collaborative strategic reading: “Real-world”
lessons from classroom teachers. Remedial and Special Education 25: 291–302.
Vaughn, S., J. Klingner, and D. Bryant. 2001. Collaborative
strategic reading as a means to enhance peer-mediated
instruction for reading comprehension and content-area
learning. Remedial and Special Education 22: 66–74.
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