Science

This article will help you to understand how structal can fit into your Science classroom.

If you have a national average classroom, 2 out of 3 of your students can't read grade level texts. This means that when they read your textbook, look at your labs, or read news articles, 2 out of 3 of your students will greatly struggle to understand what they just read. This can mean that you spend the entire lesson helping them to just literally understand what they read instead of discussing the bigger themes, covering important concepts, and building the critical thinking skills that you got into science to teach!

Just as important, STEM professions require incredibly high degrees of literacy so setting students up for a future in science means helping them to be better readers now.

Science teachers have told us structal helps them in the following ways:

Help students to understand your labs

Lab instructions often have a lot of advanced vocabulary words, some of which are very difficult to pronounce. If students can't understand the lab instructions or communicate accurately with each other about what they're doing, it makes it very hard for them to do the lab. structal's vocabulary and reading comprehension supports, as well as help with pronouncing words, will help more of your students to complete labs successfully and build a love of the scientific method.

Help students to understand your textbook

Chances are your science textbook is dense and uses a lot of advanced vocabulary. structal's reading comprehension supports help students to break down the text so it's easier for them to understand.

Teach content vocabulary in context

You're responsible teaching content vocabulary, but it's hard to find the time for explicit instruction of those words. Study after study has also found that vocabulary instruction is far more effective when it's done in context with what students are reading. structal allows you to create custom highlights for your entire vocabulary list so that students see your vocabulary words highlighted in everything they read, helping them get review on vocabulary you've taught and learn the words more effectively.

Diagnosing student issues

We've all been there, you get to the end of a lesson and you wonder, "What happened?" structal's reports, like our word cloud, help you to see what specific vocabulary and concepts your students struggled with in what they read so you don't have to guess. This lets you easily and effectively address student misunderstandings so they don't compound.