Vocabulary Teaching Resources
Build your students' vocabulary skills with printable worksheets, cloze reading activities, task cards and more elementary school teaching resources designed to help extend and improve your students' vocabularies.
This extensive collection of teaching resources has been created by teachers for teachers like you. The curriculum-aligned collection includes word-of-the-week activities, teaching presentations and more to save elementary teachers time on lesson planning.
Created by expert teachers, each resource in this ELA collection has been carefully reviewed and curated by our team. That means it's ready to use in the classroom! You'll even find editable resources, plus differentiated options.
New to teaching this part of the ELA curriculum, or just looking for fresh ways to engage your students? Read on for a primer from our teaching team!
What Is Vocabulary?
It may seem obvious, but let's start at the beginning.
In an elementary school context, vocabulary can be defined as the set of words that a student is expected to know and understand. It includes not just the words themselves but also their meanings, spellings and how to use them in different contexts.
Teaching vocabulary at this level focuses on developing a strong foundation of language skills, which will serve our students well as they continue to learn and communicate.
Vocabulary Teaching Techniques
Teaching vocabulary at the primary school level involves various techniques to help students learn new words. Some of those include:
- Providing definitions and examples of words
- Using visual aids to help students understand new words
- Encouraging students to use new words in their writing
- Teaching students to use context clues to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words
- Teaching students strategies to decode new words they encounter, including the introduction of common prefixes, suffixes and root words
Students need both explicit and implicit vocabulary instruction in primary school to learn new words as they will build a strong foundation of words, not just by picking them up while reading and listening to others, but also through direct instruction.
Teaching Vocabulary in Elementary School
Teaching vocabulary for the first time? Here are some topics you can expect to cover, depending on your grade level:
- Basic high-frequency words
- Vocabulary related to specific subjects
- Words with multiple meanings (and how to use them in context)
- Synonyms and antonyms
- Prefixes and suffixes
- Root words
- Words with irregular spellings and pronunciation
Vocabulary Teaching Ideas and Activities
Looking for some ideas to get your students excited about vocabulary? In addition to the teacher-created resources in this collection, here are a few favorite ideas from our teacher team!
Erase a Word Pronunciation Challenge
In this pronunciation game, you can select word lists related to current units or use a high-frequency word list to improve student vocabulary.
Supplies
- 3 whiteboard erasers
- Vocabulary list(s)
How to Play
- Break students into three teams, and have them stand in lines in front of your whiteboard.
- Write three lists of words onto the board — one list in front of each team.
- On the teacher's signal, the first person from each team goes up to the board and reads aloud one of the words on the list.
- If they get the word correct, they erase it and go to the back of their team's line.
- The winner is the first team to erase all the words on their list.
A-Z Vocabulary Relay Race
This is a fun, physical vocabulary game that is great to play outside or in a large multi-purpose area. Students play in teams, racing to complete a list of words (one for every letter of the alphabet) around a familiar topic or theme.
Supplies
- pens or pencils
- paper
- tape
How to Play
- Divide students into mixed-ability teams of 4 to 5 students.
- Students stand in a line on one side of the space. On the other side of the space, place a pen or pencil and tape to the ground a sheet of paper with the letters A-Z listed down the side.
- Choose a topic that the students are familiar with. This will be the theme for all the words the students write on their A-Z list. Alternatively, you can choose a unit you're currently studying as your topic.
- The race begins with the leader running to the paper and writing a word beginning with the letter A that is related to the theme. Once they've written the word — spelled correctly — they run back to their team.
- The next team member runs up to the paper and writes a word beginning with B, before running back to their team so a teammate can go up to write a word starting with C, and so on.
- If a student cannot come up with a word, they can call a friend to help. If they still can't come up with a word, they can call the teacher for help.
- Teams continue this word relay until they have written a word for every letter. The first team to complete their word list (and have it verified by the teacher!) are the winners.
Snake Words
In this game, students work in teams (similar to the A-Z relay detailed above) to create a word snake on the board. Students have a limited time (e.g. 10 seconds) to write their word or their team risks being eliminated.
Supplies
- 4 -5 different colored whiteboard markers or chalk
- a timer or stopwatch
How to Play
- Split students into 4 to 5 mixed-ability teams of equal numbers.
- Have each team select a leader and send them to the classroom whiteboard.
- Team leaders should take a colored marker and stand in a line.
- The teacher begins the game by writing a letter of the alphabet on the board and starting the timer.
- The first team leader writes a word beginning with that letter and must complete the word within the time limit. For example, if the teacher wrote the letter G, they might write galaxy. Then they hand their marker to the next person on their team.
- The second team leader uses the previous word's last letter as the next word's first letter, also within the time limit. Using the example word above, the next student may write 'yogurt.' Then they hand their marker to the next person from their team. Note: Students write the words without spaces, in essence creating a word snake. E.g. galaxyogurt
- If a student cannot come up with a word within the time limit, they can pass it to the next team member, but you should set a limit to the number of passes each team can have. After this, the team is eliminated.
- The last team standing is the winner!
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Homophones Crossword Puzzle
Challenge your students to complete this vocabulary crossword puzzle by completing the sentences with the correct homophone.
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Prefix, Suffix, and Root Word Bingo
Examine prefixes, suffixes, and root words and identify their morphological meanings in this BINGO game.
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Morphological Knowledge - Matching Activity
Review concepts learned in your prefix and suffix lessons by ensuring students understand word parts with a matching activity.
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Which Pair Is It? Interactive Synonyms and Antonyms Activity
Help your students learn new synonyms and antonyms with an interactive matching activity.
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Greek and Latin Root Word Rummy - Card Game
Explore Greek and Latin roots, words, and meanings with this hands-on card game.
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Antonyms are Opposite Words - Cut and Paste Worksheets
Build vocabulary skills with a cut-and-paste antonyms worksheet.
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Synonym Task Cards
Build vocabulary and recognition of synonyms with a set of Synonym task cards.
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Antonym Worksheets for 2nd and 3rd Grade
Build vocabulary skills with a pack of antonym worksheets for second and third grade.
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Lower Grades - Synonyms or Antonyms? Sorting Activity
Identify synonyms and antonyms with a sorting activity designed for lower elementary students.
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The Boston Massacre Reading and Writing Worksheets
Integrate Reading and Social Studies content with a set of Boston Massacre worksheets.
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Google Slides - Adjectives Interactive Activity
Provide your students with engaging, interactive activities to help them improve their usage of descriptive adjectives.
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Prefixes Interactive Teaching Presentation
Teach your students to correctly identify, define, and spell words that include common prefixes with an interactive teaching presentation.
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Greek and Latin Roots Anchor Chart Pack
Encourage vocabulary development with a set of 24 Greek and Latin Roots anchor charts.
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Reading and Writing Nonfiction Text: Earth Day Close Read Worksheets
Enhance your students' comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills with this nonfiction Earth Day passage and accompanying activities.
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Identifying Idioms and Their Meanings - Worksheet
A worksheet to practice identifying idioms and their meaning.
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Context Clues Scoot Activity
Use context clues to determine the meaning of an unfamiliar word.
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What Does That Mean? Game
A board game where students identify the correct definition of multiple-meaning words.
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Context Detectives Worksheet
A set of 3 worksheets for students to practice using context clues to identify the meaning of a word.
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Context Clues Task Cards
Use this set of 20 task cards to help students define new vocabulary words by identifying context clues within sentences.
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Individual Idiom Posters
A set of posters showing idioms and their meaning.
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SMASH IT! Compound Words Game
Practice compound words with this set of 8 combining words game boards and picture cards.
- Free Plan
Fall Word Wall Vocabulary
Print a beautiful fall word wall display with a free autumn word wall printable.
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Spot the Homophones Worksheets
Transform students into vocab detectives with this set of reading passages containing misspelled homophones.
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Homophones Word Searches
Immerse your students in common homophones with this differentiated set of homophones word searches for your vocabulary lessons.
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Prefix Crossword Puzzle
Review vocabulary skills and boost your students’ knowledge of prefixes with a printable crossword puzzle for kids
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Rainbow Affixes - Prefix and Suffix Game
Define words with prefixes and suffixes with a self-checking interactive game!
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Find The Imposter! Interactive Suffix Game
Practice using the suffixes -s and -es to pluralize words with an exciting FInd the Imposter Interactive activity.
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Make It Plural - Google Interactive Resource
Help children grasp the tricky concept of pluralizing nouns with an interactive Google Slides activity.
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Suffix Stories - Morphology Passages
Practice reading, defining, and using words suffixes with a pack of suffix-focused reading passage worksheets.
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Re- Prefix Crossword Puzzle
Review vocabulary skills and boost your students’ knowledge of the “Re-” prefix with a crossword puzzle worksheet.
- Free Plan
Plural Nouns Chart - Printable Plural Rules Guide
Give your students a reference guide to help them remember all of the different plural rules.
- Free Plan
Prefix Fun! - Cut and Paste Worksheet
Cut and paste to build words with prefixes with an fun and free prefix worksheet.
- Vocabulary Worksheets
- Vocabulary Games
- Vocabulary Posters
- Vocabulary Templates
- Vocabulary Word Walls
- Vocabulary for Pre-K
- Vocabulary for Kindergarten
- Vocabulary for 1st Grade
- Vocabulary for 2nd Grade
- Vocabulary for 3rd Grade
- Vocabulary for 4th Grade
- Vocabulary for 5th Grade
- Vocabulary for 6th Grade
- Vocabulary for 7th Grade