Success Through Academic Interventions in Language & Literacy
Mathematics and the SIOP Model
Teachers in treatment K-3 classrooms teach mathematics in English in both structured English immersion and transitional bilingual programs. Through workshops and biweekly mentoring, they learn to organize mathematics instruction using the SIOP Model*.
The SIOP Model is a framework of 30 design features that are organized in 8 components: preparation, building background, comprehensible input, strategies, interaction, practice/application, lesson delivery, and review/assessment. A particular strength of the model is that it allows variation in the ways that the features are implemented. When the model is implemented consistently and to a high degree, student performance improves (Echevarria, Short, & Powers, 2006).
Current research indicates that the academic language demands of school pertain to mathematics no less than to other subjects (Bailey, 2007). In the SAILL project, lesson development by teachers, guided by the SIOP Model, has focused especially on addressing both language and content objectives in each math lesson and on using large concept definition maps to guide whole group and pair discussions of the focal concept and key vocabulary. New language input is made comprehensible through demonstrations, pictures, manipulatives, and frequent opportunities for students to discuss information with a partner at the outset of each lesson. The body of a SIOP math lesson includes mathematical strategies and procedures demonstrated by the teacher or student confederates, mathematics activities in which students practice and apply new strategies and procedures, often collaboratively, and conversational interaction in pairs and small groups in which students discuss new concepts and different methods of reaching correct solutions. A SIOP lesson concludes with shared or individual math journaling, and a review of concepts, key vocabulary, and content and language objectives.
References
Bailey, A. L. (Ed.). (2007). The language demands of school: Putting academic English to the test. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Echevarria, J., Short, D., & Powers, K. (2006). School reform and standards-based education: An instructional model for English language learners. Journal of Educational Research, 99 (4), 195-210.
