Access and equity

English learners

Five principles helped the Lawrence Hall of Science’s curriculum developers design instructional sequences to meet the goals of bolstering students to develop deep understanding of science content, decreasing language demands without diluting science content, and allowing students to more fully engage in disciplinary literacy practices. The five principles are based on research on best practices in the field and have been reviewed by the Hall’s English learner advisors.

Principle 1: Leverage and build students’ informational background knowledge.
Principle 2: Capitalize on students’ knowledge of language.
Principle 3: Provide explicit instruction about the language of science.
Principle 4: Provide opportunities for scaffolded practice.
Principle 5: Provide multimodal means of accessing science content and expressing science knowledge.

Enacting the five principles in the curriculum

Many of the best practices for supporting English learners are also helpful for all students (for example: providing clear directions, building the curriculum as a coherent set of ideas that build on one another, allowing time for reflection, and providing explicit instruction in the practices of the discipline). These best practices form the foundation of the Amplify Science curriculum. For students who need additional support, specialized instructional approaches, activities, and resources that take into account English learners’ level of language proficiency are provided to help them develop academic language skills. Thus, language support for English learners is included throughout the program in two ways:

  1. Embedded instructional design: Many scaffolds are embedded within the instructional plan and are presented to teachers through the digital teacher materials and to all students as activities within the unit. Throughout the process of designing the curriculum, these scaffolds and supports were planned, tested, and refined to provide rigorous yet accessible science instruction.
  2. Additional support: Additional activities and specific methods for supporting English learners are provided for use as needed, especially in the Teacher Support notes within the lessons.

The following is a list of all instructional supports for English learners that are included in the curriculum. Supports are classified according to their main instructional purpose, but many supports can be said to address more than one principle.