Vocabulary Teaching Resources
Explore vocabulary games, printable worksheets, cloze reading activities, task cards and more primary school teaching resources designed to help you help your students build their vocabulary skills!
This extensive collection of teaching resources has been created by teachers for teachers like you. Aligned to the Australian curriculum, the collection includes word-of-the-week activities, teaching presentations and more to save primary teachers time on lesson planning.
Created by expert teachers, each resource in this English 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 English curriculum, or just looking for fresh ways to engage your students? Read on for a primer from our teaching team, including some vocabulary teaching techniques and tips for teaching this important part of the curriculum to your primary students.
What Is Vocabulary?
It may seem obvious, but let's start at the beginning.
In a primary 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 is focused on the development of a strong foundation of language skills, which will serve our students well as they continue to learn and communicate throughout their lives.
Vocabulary Teaching Techniques to Try in Your Classroom
Teaching vocabulary at the primary school level involves a host of different 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 Primary School
Teaching vocabulary for the first time? Here are some topics you can expect to cover, depending on your year 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
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 favourite 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 the word and go to the back of their team's line.
- The first team to erase all of the words on their list is the winner.
A-Z Vocabulary Relay Race
This is a fun, physical vocabulary game that is great to play outdoors 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
- A4 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 coloured 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 coloured 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 in their team.
- The second team leader uses the last letter of the previous word as the first letter of the next word, also within the time limit. Using the example word above, the next student may write 'yoghurt.' 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. galaxyoghurt
- 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!
- Plus Plan
Inflectional Endings - Spelling with Suffixes Worksheets
Spell words with the inflectional endings -ed, -ing, -s, -es and -ies with a pack of printable practise worksheets covering inflected endings.
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Adjectives Poster Pack
Get your students to use new words to describe objects with this set of 13 bright and colourful posters.
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Prefixes and Suffixes PowerPoint
Learn prefix and suffix concepts with an interactive teaching presentation.
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Prefixes and Suffixes Posters
Increase vocabulary skills with anchor charts about common prefixes and suffixes.
- Plus Plan
Common Spelling Rules PowerPoint
Boost your students' spelling skills with an instructional slide deck teaching the different spelling rules.
- Free Plan
Morphology Match-Up
Consolidate your morphology lessons by ensuring students understand word parts terminology and the meanings of different word parts.
- Plus Plan
Suffix Mini Anchor Charts
Give your students a visual reminder of the meanings of 28 affixes with a printable set of miniature suffix anchor charts.
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Vivid Verbs Poster Pack
Teach your students to omit boring, overused verbs from their writing with a classroom set of vivid verb posters.
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Using Suffixes - Grammar Worksheet
Review concepts related to suffixes with a printable grammar worksheet.
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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.
- Free Plan
Which Homophone? Worksheets
Download this differentiated homophones worksheet to help your students become more familiar with this tricky vocabulary!
- Free Plan
Plural Nouns Chart — Printable Plural Rules Guide
Help students remember the different plural rules with a handy printable guide created for teachers to hand out.
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Greek and Latin Roots - Word Tree Anchor Charts
Encourage vocabulary development with 24 Greek and Latin Root Tree anchor charts.
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Using Words with Prefixes - Worksheet Pack
Practise using the prefixes Un-, Re-, Mis-, Pre-, Dis-, and In- with a pair of printable prefix worksheets.
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Synonyms and Antonyms - Build a Sentence Interactive
Build a strong vocabulary and sentence-writing skills with an interactive synonyms and antonyms sentence-building activity.
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Their, There, They're Poster
Teach students to differentiate between their, there and they're with this classroom poster.
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Word of the Week Flip Book - Year 3
A 43 page flip book for introducing new vocabulary to year 3 students.
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Un- and Dis- Prefixes Worksheet
Build vocabulary skills with a prefix worksheet featuring the prefixes Un- and Dis-.
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Mini Anchor Charts - Prefixes
Give your students a visual reminder of the meanings of 36 different prefixes with a printable set of miniature prefix anchor charts.
- Plus Plan
Greek and Latin Roots Worksheet Set
Practise using vocabulary containing Greek roots and Latin roots with these weekly root word worksheets.
- Free Plan
Recognising Feelings Flashcards
Improve your students' emotional literacy with this set of feelings flashcards.
- Plus Plan
Word Of The Day Worksheet (basic)
A word of the day worksheet with a variety of tasks to give context and meaning to a word.
- Free Plan
Heroic Homophones Cloze Worksheet
Help your students select the correct homophone to use in context with this one-page cloze passage worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Spelling Double Consonant Words - Word Building Cards
Practise spelling and building words that need double consonants when adding suffixes with a word-building activity.
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Synonyms and Antonyms Practise - Worksheets
Boost vocabulary skills with daily review worksheets on synonyms and antonyms.
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Frayer Model Template for Building Vocabulary Activity
A graphic organiser to use when learning new vocabulary words.
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Wheely Wonderful Words – Emotional States Vocabulary
A word wheel of synonyms and similar words used to describe emotional states.
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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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Suffixes Mini Book
Learn to make pancakes and use the suffixes -ed and -ing with a printable mini-book.
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Spelling Words with -s, -es, and -ies Worksheets
Practise using the inflectional endings -s, -es, and -ies with a pack of printable spelling worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Prefixes, Suffixes and Roots - Dictionary Hunt Worksheet
Investigate the morphological meanings of word-parts with this dictionary hunt.
- Plus Plan
Prefixes and Suffixes Flipbook
Review and assess prefix and suffix knowledge with a printable vocabulary flipbook.