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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Vocab Review Activities for 2nd & 3rd Grades
Provide a variety of vocab review activities to help your 2nd and 3rd grade students master academic and conversational vocabulary skills.
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Vocabulary Builder Activity Pack - Upper Grades
Use our Vocabulary Builder Activity Pack to help your students develop their vocabulary skills in a fun and meaningful way!
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Shades of Meaning in Verbs Worksheet Pack
Teach your students about the shades of meaning in verbs through engaging worksheets that help students distinguish subtle differences between similar words.
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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.
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Summer Paralympic Games Crossword Puzzle
Boost vocabulary skills with a printable Paralympic Sports Crossword Puzzle.
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Classroom Color Charts
Promote color recognition in your preschool classroom with printable color word charts with images.
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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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Halloween A to Z - Vocabulary Activity
Build a spooktacular vocabulary and boost knowledge of parts of speech with a printable Halloween A to Z worksheet.
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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 Worksheet - Cloze Passage
Help your students select the correct homophone to use in context with this one-page cloze passage worksheet.
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Prefix and Suffix Quiz
Assess your students’ knowledge of prefixes and suffixes with a vocabulary quiz.
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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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Prefix Worksheet: Im- and Non-
Reinforce students' understanding of im- and non- prefixes with a printable prefix worksheet.
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Prefixes and Suffixes Word Search
Practice identifying the meanings of words containing prefixes and suffixes with a fun word search activity.
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My Word of the Day Mat
A fun worksheet to use in the classroom when building vocabulary.
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Dictionary Skills Task Cards - Set 1
A set of 12 task cards to practice various dictionary skills.
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Synonyms and Antonyms Quiz
Assess your students’ knowledge of synonyms and antonyms with a vocabulary quiz.
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Daily Vocabulary Dive - Antonyms Worksheet
Give your students a daily dose of vocabulary practice with a five-day Antonym Review Worksheet.
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Synonyms- Printable Flashcards
Build vocabulary skills with individual Synonym anchor chart flash cards.
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Four in a Row - Antonym Game
Practice identifying and using antonyms with a Four in-a Row Antonym Game!
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What's the Opposite? Differentiated Antonym Vocabulary Game
Build vocabulary and recognition of antonyms with a fun game of Antonyms Scoot!
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Synonyms Cards Match-Up Game
Download these synonyms cards to help your students recognize words with similar meanings by playing an engaging, hands-on matching game.
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Opposites with Pictures - Antonym Game
Match sets of antonyms and build vocabulary with a fun antonym matching game.
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Receptive Language Vocabulary — Cut and Sort Worksheet
Practice receptive language vocabulary with this cut and paste worksheet.
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Greek and Latin Roots Practice Worksheet Bundle
Practice using vocabulary containing Greek roots and Latin roots with 24 weekly root word practice worksheets.
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Wheely Wonderful Words – Overused Adjectives
Banish overused adjectives with a handy adjective-synonym word wheel!
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Last One Standing Active Game
An active game that allows students to build their vocabulary knowledge.
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Suffix Worksheet: -ty and -ity
Practice using the suffixes -ty and -ity with a printable suffix worksheet.
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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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Vivid Action Verbs Posters - Using Strong Verbs
Teach your students to omit boring, overused verbs from their writing with a classroom set of Vivid Verb Posters.
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Direction and Position Prefixes Worksheet Pack
Help your students master direction and position prefixes with this comprehensive worksheet pack that explores how these prefixes change word meanings.
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Verb Suffixes Teaching Slides (s, ed, ing)
Teach verb suffixes to your class with ease using this engaging slide deck that helps students understand when to apply the suffixes -s, -ed and -ing to change verb tense.