Teach and Practice Cause & Effect with Soil Erosion – Integrated ELD

Do you have a problem finding time to focus on Science in the early elementary grades? I find it challenging to find the time for science and as a result, have begun merging Science and Reading Information activities along with English Language Development (ELD). In California, the new ELD standards call this Integrated ELD.

Below is an Integrated ELD Science lesson that develops and practices academic language using our new NGSS standards for second grade.

Prior to this lesson, we had done a before reading activity with cause and effect using familiar situations, like wearing a helmet and not hurting your head when you fall. The before reading activity mimicked the language of this lesson, but with familiar cause and effect situations. We also read the text.  So, prior to the lesson below, students already had some exposure to cause and effect and worked with a piece of text about soil erosion.

Now was the time to help student express their thinking about soil erosion.

Sort the Causes and Effects

To sort the causes and effects of soil erosion, I initially held up two situations and asked which was the cause and which was the effect.  Although students could tell which was which, I missed a key component (keep reading to find out what that was).  I had to go back and reteach this key component when I realized students were not successful with the sentence frames.

Whole Group Practice

After sorting, we practiced the cause and effect sentence frames.  We practice multiple cause / effect pairs in each sentence combination. I emphasized that the “because” frame switches things around!

How did we practice whole group? We practiced the sentences orally.  I would say a sentence and the students would repeat the sentence.  Then I would say a sentence and they would tell their partner a sentence.  Using the pocket chart above, I also asked for volunteers to come and choose a cause and effect to put into the sentence frame.  We did lots of practice.

Partner Practice

Students then got their own sentence frames. There were three different versions of the sentence frames to match what we had on the anchor chart. Students met with a partner and read a sentence about soil erosion. After reading, partners switched papers and found a new partner.  Switching papers allowed students to practice different sentence frames.

After a couple of rounds, I realized that students weren’t matching the correct causes to the corresponding effects.  Remember that problem I mentioned above?  That was it.  I hadn’t explicitly emphasized that specific causes and effects went together.  Although I had modeled and we practice it when we formed our sentences.  I hadn’t made it explicit.

Re-teaching

Back to the carpet, we went. We then had a discussion about making the sentence “make sense”. If the wind blows, does it cause the soil to wash away? No, that doesn’t make sense. You have to match the correct cause with the correct effect. I took away all the effects from the pocket chart and we matched them back up again, emphasizing which cause went with which effect.

Second Practice

Students partnered up again and read a few sentences to each other like they had before.  This time, I heard more correct causes and effects.

Independent Activity

After I felt confident that students could express the cause-and-effect relationship of soil erosion, we sat down at our seats and did our notebook activity. Students cut apart the causes and effects and matched them up.

Most students did a great job! I again emphasized the “because” sentence frame where the cause / effect is reversed. After gluing down the situations, students glued down the linking words and then the linking flaps.

We glued these pages in our interactive notebook all about Earth Science. It was such a fun way to help students learn and use language. I love getting them up and moving and talking!

All of the examples above come from my Processes that Shape the Earth science unit which helps students learn the content by focusing on the language of specific comprehension skills.

It has become one of my favorite things to teach this year!  What you see above is only the “after reading” of one section. The unit aims to help students understand the content, but also develop the language they needed to express the concept.

Find out more about this unit: Processes that Shape the Earth

Find out about Developing Academic Language with Familiar Content

Do you have to teach Integrated ELD?  I’d love to hear how you’re doing it in your classroom.