L.3.6: Use Grade 3 Words, Including Time and Place Words
Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.3.6 · Cluster: Vocabulary Acquisition and Use.
The Official Wording
Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate conversational, general academic, and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships (e.g., After dinner that night we went looking for them).
Common Core State Standards, Grade 3, Language · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026
What L.3.6 Means in Plain English
Third graders pick up words from conversation, from school talk like compare and observe, and from each unit, like friction and force, then use them accurately. They also use words that place events in time and space: after, during, until, beside, across, beneath.
Second graders (L.2.6) used words from reading and conversation, with adjectives and adverbs to describe. Third grade adds subject words and time and place words that keep an explanation exact. Fourth grade (L.4.6) adds words for precise actions and feelings, like stammered, and words basic to a topic.
L.3.6 I Can Statements
- I can use our unit’s words, like friction, when I explain.
- I can use time words like after, during and until.
- I can use place words like across, beside and beneath.
L.3.6 Worked Example
One science observation explained twice. The facts are the same; the words decide whether a reader can picture it.
Explain what happened in our ramp test, using our science words and words that show when and where. We let a toy car roll down a ramp onto the smooth floor, then onto a strip of sandpaper.
Common Mistakes with L.3.6
Thing and stuff in place of the unit’s words
“The bumpy stuff made it stop.”
Try this: Post the unit’s words where students can see them during talk and writing, and ask “What’s our science word for that?”
Over there with no landmark
“It stopped over there.”
Try this: Have a partner try to point to the spot from the words alone, and add a place word plus a landmark until they can.
And then, and then, and then
“And then it rolled and then it stopped and then we did the other one.”
Try this: Give students a bank of time words (after, as soon as, during, until) and have them swap out every and then but the first.
Where L.3.6 Fits
Practice L.3.6
Quick Check
- Which words in the strong answer tell when?
- Which words in the strong answer tell where?
- Replace the vague words: “The bumpy stuff made it stop over there.”