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!
- Plus Plan
Homophone Mandala Flower Worksheets
Have your students create a colorful mandala flower while simultaneously demonstrating their understanding of common homophones.
- Free Plan
Prefixes and Suffixes - Gallery Walk Activity
Get your students up and moving to learn about prefixes and suffixes with an engaging gallery walk activity.
- Plus Plan
Greek and Latin Roots Anchor Chart Pack
Encourage vocabulary development with a set of 24 Greek and Latin Roots anchor charts.
- Plus Plan
My Word of the Week Mat
A fun worksheet to use in the classroom when building vocabulary.
- Free Plan
Core Vocabulary Board - Bulletin Board Set
Ignite student interest with fun vocabulary building activities that make learning new words interactive through our core vocabulary board set for a word of the day or week routine!
- Free Plan
Color the Synonyms and Antonyms Worksheet
Explore vocabulary with this synonyms and antonyms worksheet for 3rd and 4th grade students.
- Free Plan
Last One Standing Active Game
An active game that allows students to build their vocabulary knowledge.
- Free Plan
Word of the Week (or Day) – Graphic Organizer
Boost your students' vocabulary with this engaging Word of the Week/Word of the Day graphic organizer!
- Plus Plan
Derivational Suffix Worksheet Pack
Support vocabulary instruction with this derivational suffix worksheet set that helps students understand how adding suffixes can change word forms and meanings.
- Plus Plan
Vocabulary Sketch Note Template Pack
Review a variety of vocabulary skills and help your students build note-taking skills with our printable Vocabulary Sketch Note Template Pack.
- Plus Plan
Interactive Vocabulary Notebook - Upper Grades
Use an Interactive Vocabulary Notebook to help your students demonstrate and review a variety of vocabulary concepts.
- Free Plan
Said is Dead List - Dialogue Tags
Help your students choose a variety of dialogue tags when writing with a fun ‘Said is Dead’ Dialogue Tag List.
- Plus Plan
'Wheely' Wonderful Dialogue Tags Spinner
Spice up your students' writings and help them choose better dialogue tags with a ‘Wheely’ Wonderful Dialogue Tag Spinner.
- Plus Plan
Homophones in Context – Interactive Activity
Review the meanings and spellings of some common homophones with this digital drag-and-drop activity for your vocabulary lessons.
- Plus Plan
Homophones Tarsia Puzzle
Challenge your students to identify and match pairs of homophones with this differentiated Tarsia puzzle, perfect for your primary school vocabulary lessons.
- Free Plan
Read the Room - Classroom School Supply Labels With Pictures
Label where school supplies and equipment are housed in your classroom with free printable classroom labels with pictures.
- Free Plan
Prefix Fun! - Cut and Paste Worksheet
Cut and paste to build words with prefixes with an fun and free prefix worksheet.
- Free Plan
Synonym and Antonym Crossword Puzzle
Review vocabulary skills and boost your students’ knowledge of synonyms and antonyms with a crossword puzzle worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Synonyms and Antonyms Practice - Worksheets
Boost vocabulary skills with daily review worksheets on synonyms and antonyms.
- Free Plan
My Word of the Day Mat
A fun worksheet to use in the classroom when building vocabulary.
- Plus Plan
Synonyms Tarsia Puzzle
Have fun building vocabulary skills with a printable synonyms tarsia puzzle activity.
- Plus Plan
Dictionary Sorting Game
Get students in the habit of researching with our dictionary activity that helps learners match a word to its definition and part of speech.
- Plus Plan
Color By Code Worksheet - Synonyms and Antonyms
Reveal the hidden picture and practice using synonyms and antonyms with a vocabulary color-by-code worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Synonyms and Antonyms - Printable Puzzles
Turn your language learners into vocabulary superstars with a fun synonym and antonym puzzle activity.
- Plus Plan
Antonym Worksheets for 2nd and 3rd Grade
Build vocabulary skills with a pack of antonym worksheets for second and third grade.
- Plus Plan
Synonyms Worksheet Pack- Grades 2-3
Practice identifying and using synonyms with a set of four synonym worksheets for 2nd and 3rd Grade.
- Plus Plan
Multiple Meaning Word Puzzles
Match words to their many meanings using this set of 14 word + multiple definitions puzzle cards.
- Plus Plan
Spelling Suffixes Anchor Charts - Plurals
Help students understand when to apply the right plural spellings based on the ending of any word.
- Plus Plan
Homophones Bingo
Make learning about homophones and their definitions an engaging whole-class activity with this homophones bingo game.
- Free Plan
Dice Roll - Content Vocabulary Activity
Use our ‘Dice Roll’ Content Vocabulary Activity as an opportunity to help your students grow their vocabulary skills in the classroom.
- Plus Plan
Shades of Meaning in Nouns Worksheet Pack
Elevate student vocabulary with a noun worksheet pack that helps learners explore shades of meaning and choose more precise words in their writing.
- Plus Plan
Shades of Meaning in Adverbs Worksheet Pack
Use this adverbs worksheet pack to help students explore the subtle shades of meaning in words and confidently choose precise language in their writing.