In striving to build conceptual
knowledge of science, academic
vocabulary, and literacy skills in
all students, like us, you may have
found that this is not a simple task
and is becoming more difficult with
an ever-increasing population of
students who have limited English
proficiency. The recommendations
from the science education and
the language education communities
sometimes seem to conflict,
which also creates confusion. For
the past three years, we have been
investigating ways of integrating
language into inquiry-based science
lessons as we teach. Although
the 5R Model has worked well for
us, as Marzano stated, “No strategy
is foolproof. No strategy is proven.
You have to see how it works in
your particular setting” (2009, p.
83). So we encourage you to conduct
an investigation to determine
how well our 5R Model
works for your classrooms
and students (Weinburgh
and Silva 2012).
The 5R Model is not
linear but rather a set of
five features that you can
use throughout a unit of
study to incorporate science
language within science
content (see Table
To prepare for the lesson, you will
be aware of some academic words
that do not have a comparable everyday
word. These are often the
name of a piece of equipment or part
of a structure. Language and science
objectives will help identify these
and prepare to supply or reveal the
scientific word for the student. For
example, you will need to introduce
the concept and vocabulary of “fair
test” and help students establish
“base line data” for comparison. As
students measure the sand (Figure
2) needed in the stream table, reveal
the technical name for the pan balance
while you describe how to use