Science and SIOP

This article was published in the fall of 2009 in the Delta Discovery.

By Maria Offer

You may be asking to yourself, “What does SIOP have to do with science?” or even “What is SIOP?” SIOP stands for Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol and it is an instructional model that is being implemented by LKSD in all schools this year to help improve students’ academic achievement. SIOP provides teachers with a well-researched model of best practices for high quality language instruction, especially to bilingual students.

SIOP has been developed to teach all subjects along with the language, whether it is the Native language, such as Yup’ik or English, that is needed to be successful in that subject, such as math or science. As part of the SIOP plan, teachers integrate language goals, such as reading, writing, speaking and listening, into every class, along with content goals, such as science, math, language arts, social studies or health.

Elementary teachers in Chefornak are developing science notebooks to increase writing in science as well as giving students the opportunity to explore the natural environment. Science notebooks give students the opportunity to learn science and develop their skills in writing. Research shows that use of science notebooks greatly increases academic achievement in science, and in addition, test scores in other subject areas increased by 26%.

Chefornak teachers follow the SIOP model by first giving the students direct instruction, and then modeling what they want the students to do. With science notebooks, students also have the hands-on experience exploring their environment and collecting data in the field. Kindergarteners and first graders gathered plants on the tundra just behind the school and brought them inside to make their observations and write descriptions in their “Science Notebooks.”

They will collect their pages of observations and then add a table of contents and a cover. Next to the word scientist, they write their names.

Teachers demonstrate how scientists use science notebooks when they work in the field or do research in labs. She tells the children that when they are collecting data and writing about it in their science notebooks, they are doing real work as scientists.

And being a real scientist is exciting stuff for kindergarteners and first graders!

When students come back into the classroom after collecting data in the field, they write their observations, not in English as many scientists in Alaska do, but in Yup’ik. Along with the support of the Yup’ik curriculum staff, teachers are developing science notebooks with writing prompts in Yup’ik. The teachers note that students are learning how to write complete sentences. Teachers model writing scientific observations in complete sentences and also help students by providing “sentence frames” that help them get started.

Julia Lewis, a first-grade teacher says, “Students are doing a lot more writing because I am incorporating writing in science.” That’s important considering writing is an essential skill that students will need as they progress through the grade levels and into the world of work, higher education, and being active members of the community.

Not only are these young children strengthening their literacy skills in their first language, which is Yup’ik, but they are also learning skills that help them gain job skills. Who knows, someday these young students may be future scientists working out in the field, combining their local knowledge of the environment, Yup’ik epistemology, and their skills as bilingual speakers and writers.

"Kindergarteners Learn Literacy Through Yuraq"

I wrote this article about Yup'ik dancing and it was published in the Delta Discovery in December, 2009.






Teacher Noel Kairaiuak of Chefornak has found a way to connect students’ cultural traditions of song and dance to develop academic skills. She brings her kindergarten students to a local elder, Maria Kairaiuak’s, house where the children learn a Yup’ik dance, the words of the song and the corresponding motions. The kindergarteners watch the elder intently and practice the motions that illustrate the main events of the story.

Through the learning the songs, these young children gain a rich oral language experience and learn the motions that help them create meaning through the song and dance, as they develop their oral language.

Maria Kairaiuak is teaching the children a song about a gathering mouse food. The children depict a story about some people who go hunting for mouse food. Traveling out to the tundra, they find a mouse house and open it up to gather the mouse food. After putting the mouse food in the nap-sack, the people return home. On the way, they see two people and speak with them. They tell the two people where they can find mouse food. They leave the two people they met and continue their journey home. When they arrive, they open their backpack and share their harvest with the people who are at home.

The students practice the gestures in the song represent the sequence of events in the story. The physical movements keep all students engaged and actively participating in learning.

Kairaiuak noticed that the kindergarteners have made great improvements since they started going the elder’s house in October. She describes how the children benefit from the high level of language input. She states that the elder speaks “a more complex and traditional form of Yup’ik and this strengthens their language development, which helps build a strong foundation for academic growth.” She adds, “It is very important to expose children to the proper vocabulary and sentence structure of Yup’ik.” Additionally, Yup’ik values of sharing the harvest are integrated in this lesson as students develop expressive language skills.

Ayuprun Elitnaurvik kindergarten teacher, Sally Samson says, “Yuraq is writing with our bodies.” Samson, who recently finished a Masters program in linguistics from the UAF, researched the connection between Yup’ik dance and orthography in her thesis entitled “Yuraq: An Introduction to Writing.” Samson found that through the process of teaching Yup’ik dance she could link to writing “because it helped students understand that they are telling a story through dance, and we explored those stories further in our lessons.” From these experiences, children are able to link Yuraq with writing.

Samson based her work on research that shows reading and writing should be introduced right at the beginning of language learning to help learners connect written language with spoken language.

Both Samson and Kairaiuak teach in a Yup'ik immersion program and integrate Yuraq into the curriculum as a precursor to writing instruction help to develop writing skills. Kairaiuak notes that learning dance and songs from the elder helps the children gain an understanding of a sense of story.

According to Samson, “Yuraq helps learners develop voice, ideas, word choice and organization,” which are part of the Six-trait writing program of LKSD. She also found her research increased her awareness of the complex ways in which her young students learn literacy and language.


Kindergarten students are now finding greater success in writing, especially students who may have had difficulties in developing their writing skills, because now they are actively engaged in the writing process and it is linked to their cultural experiences. Students can easily see the connection between the sequences of events in the song and the corresponding gestures, which help children make connections to what they do in reading and writing. Integrating Yuraq has helped these teachers develop lessons to teach writing and reading as they meet the needs of the children in a developmentally appropriate way.

Photos by David Neave, LKSD social worker