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
Spelling Suffixes Anchor Charts - Plurals
Help students understand when to apply the right plural spellings based on the ending of any word.
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Comprehension Task Cards - Finding Word Meaning In Context
A set of comprehension task cards to help students find word meaning in context when reading.
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Compound Word Dominoes
Practice making new words with this compound word-matching game that includes 28 picture/word dominoes.
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SMASH IT! Compound Words Game
Practice compound words with this set of 8 combining words game boards and picture cards.
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Classroom Color Charts
Promote color recognition in your preschool classroom with printable color word charts with images.
- Free Plan
Thanksgiving Word Wall Vocabulary
Build vocabulary and inspire holiday writing with a free Thanksgiving word wall.
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Name That Homophone! Interactive Activity
Get students to recognize the correct spelling of common homophones with this engaging digital resource perfect for vocabulary lessons.
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Spell the Homophone Worksheets
Get your students spelling homophones correctly with this set of differentiated worksheets for your vocabulary lessons.
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Hunting for Homophones – SCOOT! Task Cards
Get your students to identify the correct homophones in sentences with this set of 36 task cards for your vocabulary lessons.
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Homophones Anchor Charts
Surround your students with examples of homophones with this set of 19 classroom posters.
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Antonym Coding Robot Mat
Practice coding for kids and matching antonym pairs with a coding robot mat.
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Prefixes and Suffixes Flipbook
Review and assess prefix and suffix knowledge with a printable vocabulary flipbook.
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Inflectional Endings - Spelling with Suffixes Worksheets
Spell words with the inflectional endings -ed, -ing, -s, -es and -ies with a pack of printable practice worksheets covering inflected endings.
- Free Plan
Dictionary Guide Words Cut and Paste
Cut and paste to work out what guide words go with each of these words found in the dictionary.
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Prefixes and Suffixes Slide Deck
Help your students determine the meanings of prefixes and suffixes with an instructional slide deck.
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Common Spelling Rules - Instructional Slide Deck
Boost your students' spelling skills with an instructional slide deck teaching the different spelling rules.
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Spelling Rules Posters – Plurals and Suffixes Anchor Charts
Display the common spelling rules for suffixes and plurals with a set of printable spelling rules charts.
- 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
Inauguration Day Word Wall Vocabulary
Introduce your students to Inauguration Day with a set of 48 Inauguration word wall cards.
- Free Plan
My Word of the Day Mat
A fun worksheet to use in the classroom when building vocabulary.
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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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Synonyms and Antonyms Quiz
Assess your students’ knowledge of synonyms and antonyms with a vocabulary quiz.
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Antonyms Interactive Activity
Learn new words and their antonyms with an engaging Google Slides digital learning activity.
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Color By Code Worksheet - Synonyms and Antonyms
Reveal the hidden picture and practice using synonyms and antonyms with a vocabulary color-by-code worksheet.
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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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Building Words with Prefixes Sorting Activity
Build words by matching the root word to prefixes, recording the new words on the answer sheet.
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Who's Who - Dr. Mae Jemison
Learn about Dr. Mae Jemison with this cut-and-paste activity for younger students.
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Long U Words - Printable Word List
Introduce and explore words containing graphemes that make the “long u” sound with this extensive list of words.
- Free Plan
Halloween Word Wall Vocabulary
Sixty Halloween-related vocabulary cards for a word wall.
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Dinosaurs - Vocabulary Cards and Writing Prompts for Second Grade
Inspire young paleontologists to read and write about dinosaurs with a dinosaur-themed writing center and word wall.
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Collective Nouns Teaching Presentation
Teach your students to recognize and use collective nouns with a teaching presentation.
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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.
- 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