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
Word Study List - Long O Words
Introduce and explore words containing graphemes that make the “long o” sound with this extensive list of words.
- Plus Plan
Compound Words Cut and Paste - Worksheet
Cut, paste, and write to form open and closed compound words with a word-building worksheet.
- Free Plan
Weather Word Wall Vocabulary
Use this teacher-created weather resource to teach weather vocabulary. Build a word wall with your students during your weather lessons.
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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.
- Plus Plan
Westward Expansion Word Search
Increase academic vocabulary with a Westward Expansion word search.
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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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Westward Expansion Visual Word Wall
Build vocabulary with a visual/picture word wall aligned with your Westward Expansion unit of study.
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Idioms Dominoes
Build vocabulary and have fun with idiom games.
- Plus Plan
Google Interactive Sight Words - 1st Grade Dolch
Read, write, identify, and build all 41 Dolch first-grade sight words in an interactive Google Slides presentation.
- Plus Plan
Idioms: What Are They and What Do They Mean? PowerPoint
An editable PowerPoint presentation to use when teaching idioms.
- Plus Plan
Identifying Idioms and Their Meanings - Worksheet
A worksheet to practice identifying idioms and their meaning.
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Antonym Task Cards
Build vocabulary and recognition of antonyms with a set of 24 task cards.
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'Everyone Belongs' Vocabulary Flip-book
Define and discuss vocabulary words associated with diversity and equality using this flip-book writing activity.
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Sorting by Category - Vocabulary Activity
Early readers can practice sorting and decoding with this category sorting board activity for 1 to 4 players.
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Hopping Through Hoops Active Game
An active game that allows students to review vocabulary words for any content area.
- Plus Plan
Clothes - Spanish Language Poster
A poster to use in the classroom when teaching types of clothing in Spanish.
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Word of the Week Flip Book - Grade 5
A 43 page flip book for introducing new vocabulary to grade 5 students.
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Word of the Week Flip Book - Grade 4
A 43 page flip book for introducing new vocabulary to grade 4 students.
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Word of the Week Flip Book - Grade 2
A 42 page flip book for introducing new vocabulary to year 2 students.
- Plus Plan
School - Spanish Language Poster
A poster to use in the classroom when teaching the names of common items found at school in Spanish.
- Plus Plan
Using Positional Words - Worksheets
Three worksheets using positioning vocabulary.
- Plus Plan
Differentiated Prefix Practice Worksheets - Re- Prefixes
Build students' understanding of the prefix re-.with a printable prefix worksheet.
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Prefix Worksheet - Words With the Pre- Prefix
Boost students' understanding of the prefix pre- with a printable prefix worksheet.
- Free Plan
Interesting Idioms Worksheet
A worksheet using common idioms.
- Plus Plan
Fast Finisher Vocabulary Task Cards - Upper Grades
A set of 30 vocabulary task cards.
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Finding Word Meaning In Context - Text And Word Meaning Worksheet
A teaching resource to help teach your students how to find word meaning in context.
- Plus Plan
Soccer Cloze Worksheet
A vocabulary cloze worksheet about soccer.
- Plus Plan
Multiple Meanings Vocabulary Worksheet
A worksheet to use in the classroom when identifying multiple-meaning words.
- Plus Plan
SMASH IT! Compound Words Game
Practice compound words with this set of 8 combining words game boards and picture cards.
- Plus Plan
Ice Cream Cone Colors
Kids love colors and ice cream... so we put them together!
- Plus Plan
Months of the Year Playdough Mats
Use printable playdough mats to help your students learn to read and spell the months of the year.
- Plus Plan
Word Whizz - Word Spelling Game for Kids
Practice spelling and vocabulary skills with a fun word-building game for kids.
- 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