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Project Goals & Rationale
What is the L-SILL Project?
The L-SILL Project is a three-year leadership and professional development initiative designed to build and support a cadre of
K-6 teachers at 12 school sites in Maine, engaged in linking inquiry-based science and language literacy. By linking inquiry-based, hands-on science
with language literacy, elementary science programs play a pivotal role in improving
student achievement in both science and language literacy. L-SILL focuses on using reading, writing, speaking, listening and inquiry-based science
skills in the context of an engaging, content-rich, science program to improve science learning and further the development of literacy skills in an
authentic, scientific context. Selected opportunities to participate in L-SILL sponsored professional development are available to all K-12
teachers in Maine. Visit the MMSA Calendar of Science Events to learn about professional development opportunities.
What are the L-SILL Project's Goals?
| 1. | To provide varied structures and opportunities for continuous high quality, professional development in science to K-6 teachers in Maine. |
| 2. | To help K-6 teachers learn how to improve their science teaching through inquiry. |
| 3. | To increase the quantity and quality of instructional time for inquiry-based science. |
| 4. | To help K-12 teachers incorporate the language literacy skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening within authentic science learning experiences. |
| 5. | To help K-6 teachers improve their understanding of the science content they teach and the processes of inquiry. |
Why is the L-SILL Project needed?
There is a national concern that instructional time and student opportunities to learn science have decreased in order to spend more time on reading and mathematics. However, several National Science Foundation (NSF) funded projects have shown the benefit, not only to science but to literacy and mathematics as well, of teaching high quality science every day. The appropriate use of literacy skills in the content of science learning significantly increases achievement not only in science but in reading, writing, and mathematics. Science provides an engaging context for students to practice and authentically use content literacy skills. Longitudinal data collected over successive years of successful NSF-funded science and literacy programs show an increasing reciprocal effect the longer students have been exposed to a high quality science program and a positive spillover effect when students enter middle and high school. The MMSA is collaborating with and implementing several of the strategies with Maine schools from several highly successful national science and literacy projects.
What are the key strategies used in the LSILL project?
Some of the strategies used in the L-SILL project include:
- Expository Writing: Scientists' Notebooks (based on the work of the Valle Imperial
Project, Writing in Science Project, and the Science and Literacy Integration Project
from the R.I. East Bay Collaborative)
- Reading for Inquiry: Using Children's Literature and Trade Books to Build Background
Knowledge for Science Inquiry (based on the Seeds of Science and Roots of Reading from University of
California, Berkeley.)
- Speaking and Listening: Science Discourse - Building Oral Language Through Science
(based on the work of Connecting Science and Literacy Project, EDC, Boston)
- High Quality Curriculum Materials: Implementation support for Science Companion and other K-6 science instructional materials that are developed from pedagogical research.
Findings from these national initiatives show that continued, high quality teacher professional development plays a pivotal role in improving student achievement in both science and language literacy. LSILL addresses this need through workshops, conferences, and on-site support in the strategies that link science, inquiry, and language literacy in the science classroom.
