The Comprehension Model

Imagine this scene. Your students go to their desks and open their textbooks. You introduce the week’s vocabulary words and put students into pairs to begin reading through today’s chapter. You bring the class back together to summarize what they have read and highlight the most important ideas from the reading.

What subject are you teaching in this imaginary scene?

We tend to think of weekly vocabulary and long reading passages as characteristics of a literacy class, but many science classes have the same elements. When I taught fourth grade science, the bulk of our instructional time was spent reading the textbook and learning the vocabulary words. I call this model of English instruction the Comprehension Model, because students learn science by comprehending vocabulary words and reading passages.

No wonder the same students who struggled with English also struggled with science.

This poses a particular challenge for Emergent Bilinguals. Vocabulary builds on itself, so a student who knows the word “photograph” and the word “synthesize” is ready to learn the word “photosynthesis” by extension. A student who does not know the supporting vocabulary will have to memorize scientific vocabulary outright. Science textbooks are already bursting with unknown words for native speakers, so Emergent Bilinguals have even more unknown words to navigate.

Even native English speakers can find the Comprehension Model challenging. Understanding a science textbook requires engaging with the text, not just knowing the words on the page. Students must be able to use context clues to define unknown words, use headings to determine main ideas, and determine cause and effect relationships, all while monitoring their understanding.

When teachers realize all the literacy components of their science class and support their students in those skills, students can thrive in the Comprehension Model. In the coming weeks, I will be providing resources to make the Comprehension Model work in your classroom. If the Comprehension Model is not for you, in a few weeks I will explain the Connection Model and explain how it can be used in your science class.