“What words should I use?” Multilingual Learners Learning to Make Language Choices in Science Explanations in Elementary School

Abstract This chapter provides teachers with guidance and examples on how to position language in the service of learning science in elementary classrooms. The authors illustrate how to make language visible using the WIDA 2020 Edition of the ELD Standards Language Expectations, Language Functions and Features to support students’ writing of science explanations. Through these examples we illustrate the power of an apprenticeship pedagogy called the Teaching and Learning Cycle where students are apprenticed into disciplinary genres through macro and micro scaffolding without simplifying the language and without preteaching science vocabulary.