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Common Core ELA7th GradeLanguage

L.7.6: Academic and Subject Vocabulary

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.7.6 · Cluster: Vocabulary Acquisition and Use.

Make a Vocabulary QuizAll 41 7th Grade ELA Standards

The Official Wording

Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases; gather vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.

Common Core State Standards, Grade 7, Language · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What L.7.6 Means in Plain English

Seventh graders learn the words that cross subjects, like analyze, evidence and significant, and the words that belong to one, like photosynthesis or tariff, then use them correctly in their own talk and writing. When a word blocks understanding, they track it down instead of skipping it.

Sixth grade (L.6.6) and eighth grade (L.8.6) share this standard word for word. What changes is the content: seventh grade’s classes bring words like proportional, ecosystem and amendment, and students must use them accurately, not just recognize them.

L.7.6 I Can Statements

  • I can use academic words like analyze and significant correctly.
  • I can use subject words like photosynthesis in my own answers.
  • I can look up a word that blocks my understanding.

L.7.6 Worked Example

One science question, two answers with the same rough idea, and only one of them uses the words of the subject.

Prompt

Science exit ticket: Explain how energy moves through a food chain in a forest ecosystem.

Not YetThe sun gives the plants stuff, then bugs eat the plants and get the stuff, and then birds eat the bugs and get it too, and it keeps going.The idea is roughly right, but stuff stands in for energy, and none of the unit’s words appear. The reader can’t tell whether the student knows what is passed along, or how.
Meets the StandardProducers, like the oak trees, capture energy from sunlight through photosynthesis. Primary consumers, such as caterpillars, get that energy by eating the leaves, and secondary consumers, like the warblers that eat caterpillars, get it next. At each step, most of the energy is used or lost as heat, so less is available to the next level.Producer, consumer and photosynthesis name exactly what the weak answer called stuff, each used correctly with an example. General academic words like capture and available, and the link “so less is available,” show cause and effect, not just order.
Moves to Use
Swap placeholder words (stuff, thing, it) for the unit’s exact term.Pair each subject word with an example: producers, like oak trees.Use academic links that show logic: so, as a result, which means.When a word in the question is unclear, look it up before you answer.

Common Mistakes with L.7.6

Recognizing words but never using them

A student matches photosynthesis to its definition on the quiz, then writes “plants make food from the sun stuff”

Try this: Require three unit words in every written answer this week, underlined, and give credit only when each is used accurately.

Teaching only the subject words

A word wall full of science terms, but no analyze, significant or evidence

Try this: Add the general academic words that appear in your directions and questions, like analyze and contrast, to the same word wall.

Skipping the word that matters

“I didn’t know what decomposer meant, so I skipped that part.”

Try this: Teach students to circle any word in a question they can’t define and resolve it, by glossary or by asking, before answering.

Where L.7.6 Fits

Comes BeforeL.6.6Learn and use grade-level academic and subject words, and look up the ones that matter.
AlongsideRST.6-8.4Determine the meaning of key terms and symbols in science and technical texts.W.7.2Use precise language and subject vocabulary to inform about or explain a topic.
Comes NextL.8.6Build and use 8th-grade academic and subject vocabulary with the same habits.

Practice L.7.6

Vocabulary Quiz GeneratorFree ToolA matching quiz on the unit’s words, with subject terms like producer and consumer next to academic words like analyze and significant.Unit wordsAcademic wordsMatching
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Quick Check

  1. Which subject words in the strong answer replace “stuff” and “bugs” in the weak one?
  2. Name a general academic word in the strong answer, one that also shows up outside science.
  3. What should a student do on meeting decomposer in a question for the first time?

L.7.6: Other Names

L.7.6CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.7.6

Common Core State Standards © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved. Official wording from the Common Core State Standards PDFs at corestandards.org, last checked October 14, 2026. The explanation, I can statements, example, mistakes and practice on this page are EMStudio’s own, written beside the official wording. They are not part of the standard.