The Language Demands Hiding in Standards

In Part 1, we unpacked the concepts and skills hidden within our Grade 3 science standard: "Provide evidence that plants and animals have traits that help them survive in their environments." But there's another layer to unpack—the language students need to both access and demonstrate those concepts and skills.

Every standard contains vocabulary and language functions that can either support or block student learning. Some students might fully grasp the concept that thick fur helps animals survive cold but lack the academic label "adaptation" to connect this understanding to broader scientific thinking. Others might know the term "adaptation" but struggle to link it to the specific examples they're observing.

Even when students understand individual concepts, they may miss crucial relationships between ideas without the connective language that signals those relationships. Phrases like "as a result," "this leads to," or "because of this" aren't just helpful—they're essential for following and expressing cause-and-effect thinking that's central to scientific reasoning.

These language demands affect all learners, but they're especially significant for multilingual students who are developing content knowledge and academic English simultaneously. When we identify vocabulary and language functions systematically, we can make strategic decisions about when and how to address them—ensuring that language supports learning rather than creating unnecessary barriers.

This is Part 2 of our unpacking series. Today we'll identify the vocabulary and language functions embedded in standards, and explore when language itself needs to become a learning objective.

Two Types of Vocabulary to Consider

As we examine our science standard, students will encounter different types of vocabulary that require different levels of attention:

General academic vocabulary appears across multiple subjects and disciplines. In our standard, words like "provide," "evidence," and "environments" show up in science, social studies, and English language arts. These terms build students' overall academic language foundation.

Content-specific vocabulary is closely tied to the discipline itself. Terms like "traits," "adaptation," "physical traits," and "behavioral traits" are essential to understanding biological concepts. These words may need more focused attention because they're so directly connected to the learning.

Both types matter, but content-specific vocabulary often requires more intentional instruction because students need these terms to think and communicate about the concepts themselves.

Language Functions: The Connective Tissue of Academic Thinking

Beyond individual vocabulary words, standards also contain language functions—the ways we use language to accomplish specific thinking tasks. When we look at the skills embedded in our science standard, we see thinking skills like "making a claim and providing evidence," "explaining cause and effect," and "comparing and contrasting." The moment these thinking skills move outside our heads, they require language to express them.

Language functions have two essential components that work together:

Organizational structures that can be visually represented. When students compare and contrast animal traits, they might use a Venn diagram to organize their thinking. When they explain cause-and-effect relationships between traits and survival, they might work through a flow chart or sequence diagram. These visual frameworks help students organize complex thinking before they express it in words.

Signal phrases that help students express relationships between ideas. Different thinking tasks require different language patterns:

• When providing evidence: "This shows that..." or "For example..."
• When explaining cause and effect: "Because of this..." or "As a result..."
• When comparing: "Similarly..." or "In contrast..."

These aren't just helpful phrases—they're essential tools that help students both follow complex explanations and express sophisticated thinking.

Language Functions in Our Science Standard

Let's return to our Grade 3 science example to see how this plays out. When students work toward "providing evidence that animals have traits that help them survive," they need several specific language functions:

Making claims and providing evidence requires students to structure their thinking as: Claim → Evidence → Reasoning. They need phrases like "I observed that..." "This shows..." and "Therefore..." to connect their observations to their conclusions.

Explaining cause and effect involves understanding and expressing how environmental pressures lead to specific traits. Students need language like "Because the Arctic is cold..." "As a result, polar bears developed..." "This adaptation helps them..."

Describing and categorizing means students can organize traits into meaningful groups. They need phrases like "One type of trait is..." "These can be grouped as..." "Another example of this is..."

For multilingual learners who are developing content knowledge and academic English simultaneously, these language functions can either bridge understanding or create barriers to demonstrating what they know.

When Language Becomes a Learning Objective

Here's the strategic question we face as we plan instruction: When do vocabulary and language functions need to become explicit learning objectives rather than just supports we provide along the way?

This isn't about adding more to our already full plates—it's about making strategic decisions that help students access learning more effectively. Sometimes the most efficient path forward is to teach language explicitly so it becomes a tool students can use independently.

Consider making VOCABULARY an explicit objective when:

The terms are essential for understanding core concepts. In our science standard, "adaptation" isn't just a nice-to-know word—it's central to how biologists think about survival and environmental relationships. Students need this concept to engage with the content meaningfully.

Students will encounter these terms repeatedly throughout the unit or year. If "evidence" shows up in every science investigation, or "cause and effect" appears across multiple standards, investing time in explicit vocabulary instruction pays dividends throughout future lessons.

The vocabulary represents genuinely new concepts, not just new labels for familiar ideas. "Behavioral traits" might be a new way to categorize actions students already understand, but "adaptation" represents a complex relationship between organisms and environments that may need focused attention.

Consider making LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS explicit objectives when:

The thinking skill is new or challenging for your students. If students are just learning to "provide evidence" for their claims, they may need explicit instruction in both the thinking process and the language patterns that support it.

The language function is essential for the discipline. Scientists provide evidence, historians analyze cause and effect, mathematicians justify their reasoning. When language functions are central to how experts think in a field, students benefit from learning these patterns explicitly.

Students need this language function to access other parts of the curriculum. If "comparing and contrasting" shows up in science, social studies, and literature, teaching the language patterns once creates tools students can transfer across subjects.

Practical Application: Making Strategic Decisions

Let's apply this thinking to our Grade 3 science standard. Based on what we know about our students and the learning ahead, we might make strategic decisions like these:

For vocabulary: "Students will be able to distinguish between physical traits and behavioral traits using examples from polar bear adaptations."

For language functions: "Students will be able to provide evidence for their claims using the pattern: 'I observed that... This shows that... because...'"

These objectives focus on language that helps students access content and demonstrate understanding. This analysis benefits all learners—when we're explicit about vocabulary and language functions, students can focus their cognitive energy on learning content rather than guessing at expectations, and classroom discussions become more accessible and productive.

The goal isn't to turn every lesson into a vocabulary lesson—it's to strategically remove language barriers that might prevent students from engaging with content at the level we're expecting.

Building Forward

In Part 1, we learned to unpack standards for concepts and skills—the building blocks of learning objectives. Now we can add the language layer: identifying vocabulary and language functions that students need to access and demonstrate their learning.

This systematic approach helps us create learning objectives that truly support all students. When we understand the concepts, skills, AND language demands embedded in standards, we can craft daily objectives that are appropriately sized, clearly focused, and genuinely accessible.

Try this three-layer analysis with your own standards:

1. What concepts do students need to know?
2. What skills do they need to develop?
3. What vocabulary and language functions do they need to access and demonstrate this learning?

This systematic unpacking transforms standards from overwhelming mandates into clear roadmaps for daily instruction. When we understand what's truly embedded in our standards—and make strategic decisions about language support—we can create learning objectives that serve as effective control towers for instruction, coordinating not just what students learn, but how they access that learning and express what they know.

The result? Learning objectives that genuinely accelerate student learning for all students, moving us toward that powerful 0.88 effect size that makes such a difference in our classrooms.