Teaching Reading in Secondary Science

Science texts at a secondary school level are lexically dense. Extra effort is needed to help students gain the necessary vocabulary so they can read descriptions and explanations found in a science lesson. Some studies have suggested learning semantic groupings may impede language development when learning a second language. However when learning the vocabulary in a subject area like science it is important to learn subject categories and which words belong to that category. This way a student may make local connections between words learnt previously and the new words associated with a new topic.