Literacy Strategies
The importance of raising students' level of literacy has been a big challenge for a while. It is apparent that students' reading level is dropping each year, and literacy strategies are needed even in science classrooms. In science reading includes reading science textbooks, scientific terms, reading scientific articles, analyzing data and its explanation, etc. More literacy strategies are needed than what people think because there is quite a lot of reading that is done in science classrooms. To raise students' understanding and reading skills, instructors need to strategically add components throughout the lessons.
In this unit, a variety of literacy strategies, such as word board, research projects, reading scientific articles. The good example of raising students' literacy skills is word board, and it will be used throughout the whole unit. Starting with the first lesson, whenever students encounter the words that they do not know and put them on the word board. For the important words, the instructor will find out the definition of the word with the students. For example, if students do not know what wavelength is, the instructor will divide the word to "wave" and "length" and ask students what they think this would mean on the wave graph. Students will give their clues about what they think wavelength represents, and the instructor will give the final definition on the word board. This will raise students' literacy skills by expanding students' vocabulary, and the students will remember the term for a longer period of time because they will remember how the word was broken down to the words "wave" and "length" which are the words that are familiar to students.
In this unit, a variety of literacy strategies, such as word board, research projects, reading scientific articles. The good example of raising students' literacy skills is word board, and it will be used throughout the whole unit. Starting with the first lesson, whenever students encounter the words that they do not know and put them on the word board. For the important words, the instructor will find out the definition of the word with the students. For example, if students do not know what wavelength is, the instructor will divide the word to "wave" and "length" and ask students what they think this would mean on the wave graph. Students will give their clues about what they think wavelength represents, and the instructor will give the final definition on the word board. This will raise students' literacy skills by expanding students' vocabulary, and the students will remember the term for a longer period of time because they will remember how the word was broken down to the words "wave" and "length" which are the words that are familiar to students.