First come the BICS (social language) and then come the CALPS (academic language). If you’ve worked with English learners, you know that the former comes a lot easier than the latter. Academic language can be so tricky, not just for ELs but for struggling readers too. That’s why we created these academic vocabulary mini posters. We picked words we know students will encounter across different content areas and created academic vocabulary mini posters to help them understand what those words mean.
What do academic vocabulary posters teach students?
We picked six super-useful words across different subject areas: analyze, describe, justify, determine, examine, and interpret. Each poster includes the same features. Let’s take a look at the poster for “analyze”:
- A definition: to look at information very carefully so you can explain it
- Syllabication: an-a-lyze
- An example sentence: We need to analyze the word problem more carefully.
- Where students might see the word used: reading, math problems, science experiments, historical documents
