Domain Vocabulary Across Subject Areas
Acquire and use accurately academic and domain-specific vocabulary relevant to grade-level topics, including words that signal precise meaning in informational texts across subject areas
What a learner can do afterwards
- Identify and define academic vocabulary (e.g., compare, contrast, summarise, evidence, interpret) used across multiple subject areas and use these words accurately in discussion and writing
- Determine the meaning of domain-specific words encountered in science, social studies, or maths texts (e.g., ecosystem, democracy, numerator) using context, glossaries, and prior knowledge
- Use newly acquired academic and domain-specific vocabulary in sentences that demonstrate understanding of precise meaning and appropriate context
The lesson
Every subject has words that carry an exact meaning. Some words, like compare, contrast, summarize, evidence, and interpret, show up in science, social studies, and math alike. They help you think clearly no matter what you are studying.
Your science book says: 'A pond ecosystem includes the fish, plants, water, and rocks that all depend on each other.' You may not know the word ecosystem, but the sentence lists fish, plants, water, and rocks working together. That context tells you an ecosystem is a group of living and nonliving things connected in one place.
Each subject has its own key words too. Science uses words like habitat and ecosystem. Social studies uses words like democracy and government. Math uses words like numerator and denominator. Learning these words helps you understand the ideas behind them.
After you learn a new word, use it in your own sentence right away. Writing 'The desert habitat has very little water' locks in the meaning better than just reading a definition.
Subject words carry exact meanings, so use context clues to figure them out, then use the word yourself.
Watch it
Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.