Disciplinary Literacy for Young Monolingual and Multilingual Learners

• In Event: Reimagining K–12 Disciplinary Literacy: Access, Engagement, and Innovation Across Subjects

Abstract

Objectives/Purpose: Scholars have debated whether disciplinary literacy instruction should begin in elementary grades (Gabriel & Kelley, 2024; Kane et al., 2024; Shanahan, 2021). However, the Next Generation Science Standards expect children to approximate disciplinary literacy skills and use oral language as an entry into science disciplinary literacy practices (NRC, 2012). We will present a series of studies of children engaging with a K-2 science-literacy integrated curriculum to provide “proof of concept” that young children, including multilingual learners, can engage in disciplinary literacy practices.
Framework: These studies were grounded in sociolinguistics, emphasizing learning through communication/talk. When children engage in sensemaking, including scientific explanations and argumentation, they also practice/learn language (Donovan & Bransford, 2005; Schwarz et al., 2017). The studies we will present specifically focused on disciplinary literacy, or the ways disciplinary communities use language to communicate understandings (Fang & Schleppegrell, 2010; Moje, 2007; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). We investigated how teachers apprenticed monolingual and multilingual K-2 students into communicating their sensemaking in science.

Methods & Data: We engaged in design-based research (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012; Cobb et al., 2003; DBR Collective, 2003), investigating iterative modifications to the [Name Blinded] K-2 curriculum to support science and disciplinary literacy. We conducted studies in the U.S. Midwest in communities ranging from those with mostly English speakers to those with many Arabic speakers, as well as in Spanish dual-language classrooms in the Southeast. We collected videos of instruction, teacher interviews about the curriculum and student learning, student written work, and audio recordings of student talk. We qualitatively analyzed data using descriptive and process (action verb) codes followed by pattern and concept codes (Saldaña, 2016) to determine how young students developed disciplinary literacy and language skills through teacher support.

Findings: The first/original study described iterative modifications to create a curriculum with questioning, first-hand investigations, interactive read-alouds, writing/drawing of models and explanations, and synthesis discussions. It found that across 13 classrooms, kindergarteners receiving the curriculum outperformed peers on science and vocabulary assessments (Authors, 2017). Subsequent studies, including in communities with a large number of Arabic speakers, found that drawings, gestures, sentence stems, and intentionally pairing students for conversations supported K-2 engagement in disciplinary literacy. The latest study investigated modifications necessary for Spanish dual-language classrooms. Modifications included creating and labeling more images to support initial observations and questions and adding more images and explicit opportunities for drawing and labeling to independent work. Modifications supported Spanish learning and engagement in disciplinary literacy.

Significance: Historically, science for young children has involved either disconnected activities (like hatching butterflies) or learning facts and/or informational text structures, rather than coherent science learning. Like studies that have found benefits to simultaneously supporting reading/writing, science, and language in elementary (e.g., Cervetti et al., 2012; Lammert & Hand, 2023), we view our series of studies as “proof of concept” that young children can engage in science disciplinary literacy practices. Investigating how to support teachers to integrate (1) instruction across disciplines and (2) language and content for multilingual learners is vital for “imagining [students’] futures.”

Authors

• Lisa Domke, Georgia State University

• Tanya S. Wright, University of Michigan

• Amelia Wenk Gotwals, Michigan State University