All students, including English language learners (ELLs), benefit from a curriculum that emphasizes the teaching of concepts in depth and focuses on process and critical thinking skills. Often, simply using the inquiry-based learning and hands-on approaches advocated by the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996) helps make complex rigorous academic concepts and language more concrete. But something more is needed. This article describes some strategies to help ELLs make sense of academic language.