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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Word Study Lists – Homophones
Introduce your students to the most common homophones with these two sets of comprehensive word lists.
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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.
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Homophones in the Dictionary Worksheets
Help your students become familiar with the meanings and spellings of common homophones with this differentiated dictionary skills worksheet.
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Prefix Crossword Puzzle
Review vocabulary skills and boost your students’ knowledge of prefixes with a printable crossword puzzle for kids
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Defining Homophones Matching Game
Help your students become familiar with the meanings and spellings of common homophones with this set of 36 differentiated matching cards.
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Defining Homophones Task Cards
Print this set of 24 homophones task cards for your class reading centers.
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Which Homophone? Interactive Game
Add some excitement to your vocabulary lessons with an interactive game exploring homophones and their definitions.
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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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Affixes Word Building Puzzle Activity
Build words with affixes with a pack of printable word-building puzzles.
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Affix Heroes Interactive Activity
Help the Affix Heroes define words with prefixes and suffixes with a self-checking interactive game!
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Word Villain - Prefix and Suffix Worksheets
Practice building words with suffixes and prefixes with a pair of printable vocabulary worksheets.
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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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Frog Hop Suffixes - Interactive Grammar Review
Review knowledge of suffixes with a fun frog-themed Google Slides Interactive review activity.
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Affixes Worksheet - Color By Code
Practice identifying words with affixes with a fun color by code worksheet.
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Suffix Stars - Making Plurals Interactive
Practice reading and spelling plural nouns with an engaging Google Slides digital learning activity.
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Gum Ball Affixes Interactive Resource
Learn new words and their prefixes, suffixes, and base words with an engaging Google Slides digital learning activity.
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I Have, Who Has Prefix Game
Play an exciting game to help your students identify and define words with the prefixes - pre, re, un, and dis.
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Building Words with Suffixes - Literacy Center Cards
Build words using the suffixes -ed, -es, -s, and -ing with a printable word-building pocket chart card pack.
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Prefix and Suffix Quiz
Assess your students’ knowledge of prefixes and suffixes with a vocabulary quiz.
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Spelling Words with -s, -es, and -ies Worksheets
Practice using the inflectional endings -s, -es, and -ies with a pack of English worksheets.
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Suffixes - Color By Code Worksheet
Reveal the hidden picture and practice using the inflectional endings -s, -es, -ies, and -ves with a color-by-code worksheet.
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Suffix Worksheet: -less
Build vocabulary skills with a suffix worksheet featuring the suffix -less.
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Suffix Worksheet: -ment
Improve students' understanding of the suffix -ment with a printable suffix worksheet.
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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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Prefixes and Suffixes Slide Deck
Help your students determine the meanings of prefixes and suffixes with an instructional slide deck.
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Prefix Word Wall - Words with Un, Re, Pre, Dis, In, and Mis
Build a vocabulary bulletin board of words with un-, re-, pre-, dis-, mis-, and in- with a printable prefix word wall display.
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Prefix Puzzles - Printable Reading Center
Grow your students’ vocabularies with an engaging prefix puzzle activity.
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Suffix Bingo - Vocabulary Game
Match words with suffixes to their meaning in this BINGO game.
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Prefixes, Suffixes, and Roots - Dictionary Hunt Worksheet
Investigate the meanings of prefixes, suffixes, and root words with a dictionary hunt worksheet.
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Prefix Puzzles - Printable Reading Centers
Practice building, reading, and understanding the meaning of words with prefixes with fun literacy centers!
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Greek or Latin Root Word Window - Graphic Organizer
Display learning about Greek and Latin roots and their origins with a crafty graphic organizer.
- 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