Learning the Lexicon:
The Importance of Vocabulary in Astronomy Courses

Heather R. Theijsmeijer
CASCA Education Coordinator
Email: cascaed@astro.utoronto.ca

The key to learning any new language – French, English, Russian, or even (rather, especially!) mathematics – is to start with a good vocabulary base. Sentences, idioms, contexts all come later. The same can be said for the sciences. Without a strong base of the meanings of the words used in Astronomy, a student has little hope of successfully completing a course, let alone even understanding the daily lessons. Students learn an average of over 2000 words every year in various subject areas – is it any wonder they confuse some of the vocabulary presented to them?

Teaching not only scientific knowledge, but also scientific literacy will help ensure that students get the most out of your courses. Scientific literacy can be split into three areas of assessment: reading, writing, and communicating orally. Depending on the course, you may only be able to realistically address one of these consistently, but every chance your students get to improve their literacy skills will help them in the end. Improving literacy can be done in many ways, some of which I am sure you already use in class, perhaps without realizing: oral presentations, textbook readings, using journal articles.

Reading is very much a thinking process. In a world where short attention spans seem to be becoming the norm, many students need all the help they can get when it comes to succeeding. With a little extra attention paid to the literacy aspect of your teaching, students may find learning a little easier, and the harder concepts a little more attainable.

Below is a listing of strategies that can be used in your courses to help students improve their scientific literacy. As usual, I have tried to include items that will give you the most “bang for your buck” – hopefully little work that will result in larger payoffs of the part of the students.

Have a list of “new” or challenging words that the students will find in the text, when distributing a new article, reading passage or starting a new chapter in the textbook. This allows the students to be aware of these new words (and aware of the fact that they need to know them) before they even begin. It also provides a list to study from later on in the course, and expands the student’s vocabulary.

Provide a variety of informational texts. Always reading from the textbook will acclimatize the student to information presented in only one way. Newspaper articles, website articles, journal articles, or even a summary of a topic written by a second source provide more depth, and further contextual understanding. Something that a student didn’t quite pick up on in the textbook may become quite obvious when reading about it in the news. This also allows the student to see who uses the information presented in class.

Use different types of texts. There are informational texts (articles, textbook passages), which make up the majority of students’ reading, but don’t forget graphical texts. These include graphs, schematic diagrams and flow charts, which, depending on the content, could make up a large part of what the students read in your course. Since they also use the terms found in informational texts, it is good to provide students with examples of both to reinforce terminology. Though it might not apply for advanced levels, “following instructions” is also an example of scientific literacy, one which many of the younger students still need to improve!

Choose a good textbook. A well-designed textbook uses both informational texts and graphical texts to organize the main ideas of a course. Textbooks that offer consistency in the layout allow students to spend more time concentrated on the reading itself, rather than trying to work their way through the book. This is especially effective for younger (Astronomy 100) students.

Help the students visualize what they are reading. Particularly in the sciences, being able to picture what you are reading will help the understanding of spatial relationships and create cross-curricular connections. Similarly, being able to talk through something that was just read reinforces the material and often allows the student to approach the topic from a different perspective. You can help students visualize by asking them to think through a process aloud, or discuss a particular passage of text.

Have the students make notes on their readings. Notes can help students monitor their understanding and organize the information they have just learned. Have students summarize their reading (either orally to a small group of fellow students, or on paper), or provide them with tips for making notes, such as using point form/shorthand/symbols, using headings and putting the concepts in their own words.

CASCA education Webteam (2007)