Sheltered Strategies in Science, Math & Social Studies

Sheltered Strategies in Core Content Areas

A persistent myth in education is that subjects like Mathematics and Science are "universal languages" requiring minimal English proficiency. In reality, modern content-area instruction relies heavily on specialized linguistic registers, dense academic vocabulary, complex passive syntax, and abstract reasoning. Emergent Bilinguals (EBs) placed in un-sheltered content classrooms face a double cognitive burden: deciphering complex subject-specific concepts while simultaneously parsing unfamiliar academic English. To make core subjects comprehensible, teachers must employ targeted, subject-specific sheltered instruction strategies.

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Sheltered Strategies for Mathematics

Mathematics presents unique linguistic hurdles. Math word problems embed mathematical operations within dense, culturally situated narratives. Furthermore, math relies heavily on polysemous words—everyday English words that carry entirely different meanings in mathematics (e.g., table, volume, plane, prime, expression, mean, net).

1. The Concrete-Representational-Abstract (CRA) Model

The CRA model provides a sequential instructional framework that moves from physical experience to symbolic abstraction, making mathematical concepts fully accessible to EBs regardless of English level.

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                     THE CRA MATHEMATICAL SEQUENCE                 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  STAGE 1: CONCRETE (Hands-On Manipulatives)                       |
|  • Students manipulate physical base-ten blocks, fraction tiles,   |
|    or geometric solids to solve problems without language load.   |
|                                                                   |
|  STAGE 2: REPRESENTATIONAL (Visual Models)                        |
|  • Students draw diagrams, tallies, number lines, or bar models   |
|    representing the physical manipulatives.                        |
|                                                                   |
|  STAGE 3: ABSTRACT (Mathematical Symbols & Vocabulary)             |
|  • Teacher introduces numerical equations, operational symbols,    |
|    and target academic vocabulary (e.g., "numerator, sum").      |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

2. Mathematical Language Routines (MLRs)

Developed by Stanford University researchers, MLRs foster mathematical reasoning and language development simultaneously:

• MLR1: Stronger and Clearer Each Time: Students write an initial mathematical explanation, pair with peers to share and revise their thinking, and refine their written response to make it linguistically clearer and mathematically stronger.
• MLR2: Collect and Display: The teacher listens to student pair discussions, scribes their informal spoken language onto a public anchor chart, and explicitly links informal phrases to formal mathematical register words (e.g., linking "the bottom number" to "denominator").
• MLR7: Compare and Connect: Students compare different mathematical solution methods, discussing how visual representations connect to numerical algorithms using sentence stems.

3. Math Signal Word Deconstruction

Teachers must explicitly instruct EBs to identify and decode "signal words" embedded in word problems, mapping them directly to operational concepts:

• Addition: altogether, combined, sum, total, increased by.
• Subtraction: difference, remaining, fewer than, how many more.
• Multiplication: product, times, per, area of, each.
• Division: quotient, shared equally, ratio, split into.

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Sheltered Strategies for Science

Science instruction requires students to process dense Tier-3 technical terms (photosynthesis, thermodynamics, homeostasis) and understand complex causal relationships.

1. The 5E Instructional Model (Explore Before Explain)

Traditional science instruction begins with teacher lectures and textbook reading (Explain), followed by labs (Explore). For EBs, this sequence induces immediate cognitive overload. The sheltered 5E Model flips this sequence:

1. Engage: Activate prior knowledge using compelling visual phenomena or demonstrations.
2. Explore (Hands-on FIRST): Students conduct inquiry-based experiments and make physical observations before formal vocabulary is introduced. This creates a shared concrete experience.
3. Explain (Language Integration): The teacher introduces formal scientific vocabulary ("evaporation, condensation"), attaching labels directly to the physical phenomena students just observed during the Explore phase.
4. Elaborate: Students apply concepts to new phenomena using graphic organizers.
5. Evaluate: Students demonstrate mastery through multimodal assessments.

2. Greek and Latin Root Morphosemantics

Over 80% of scientific vocabulary is derived from Greek and Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Explicitly teaching morphosemantics equips EBs to independently decode unknown technical words:

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Sheltered Strategies for Social Studies

Social Studies presents massive challenges for EBs due to archaic primary source texts, dense background knowledge requirements, and complex historical registers.

1. Primary Source Scaffolding

Historical documents (e.g., the Declaration of Independence or Gettysburg Address) contain complex syntax and obsolete vocabulary. Teachers scaffold primary sources using:

• Text Chunking: Breaking lengthy historical documents into small 2-to-3 sentence excerpts.
• Side-by-Side Glossaries: Presenting original historical text on the left with simplified, modern English translations and visual glossaries on the right.
• Contextual Pre-teaching: Providing background context videos or visual timelines before reading.

2. Structured Academic Controversy (SAC)

SAC is a sheltered cooperative learning strategy where students analyze multi-perspective historical issues (e.g., "Was the US purchase of Louisiana constitutional?"):

• Students work in pairs to analyze primary source evidence for one perspective.
• Pairs present their position to an opposing pair using structured sentence frames ("Our evidence indicates that...").
• Pairs switch roles to articulate the opposing view, demonstrating perspective-taking.
• The group synthesizes a consensus position, developing high-level historical reasoning without competitive debate anxiety.