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
Halloween Bingo Game
Scare up and solve some spooky Halloween riddles with a printable Halloween Bingo Game.
- Free Plan
Prefix and Suffix Anchor Charts
Increase vocabulary skills with anchor charts about prefixes and suffixes.
- Free Plan
Grammar Practice Worksheets - Vocabulary Cut and Sort
Review parts of speech and word usage skills with a pack of cut-and-paste Grammar Sorting Worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Context Clues Reading Passages & Comprehension Sheets
Use a Context Clues Reading Passage and comprehension sheet to assess your student's ability to define unknown words using context clues.
- Free Plan
Morpheme Match Up Game
Review concepts learned in your prefix and suffix lessons by ensuring students understand word parts with a matching activity.
- Plus Plan
Spell the Homophone Worksheets
Get your students spelling homophones correctly with this set of differentiated worksheets for your vocabulary lessons.
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Plural Spelling Rules Teaching Slides
Teach plural rules to your class with ease using this engaging slide deck that helps students understand when to add -s, -es, -ies and -ves to make plural nouns.
- 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.
- 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.
- Plus Plan
SCOOT! Context Clues Activity Cards
Play SCOOT!, a Context Clues Activity to practice identifying unknown words in sentences.
- Free Plan
Word Power - Vocabulary Comic Strip Graphic Organizer
Expand your students’ vocabulary skills with a printable Vocabulary Comic Strip Graphic Organizer.
- Free Plan
Adding Suffixes - Vocabulary Worksheet
Review concepts related to suffixes with a printable grammar worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Adjective Suffix Worksheet Pack
Use this suffix worksheet pack to help students recognize, apply and spell adjective-forming suffixes such as ful, less, y, ous, able, ive and ic.
- Plus Plan
Word Building Bricks - Prefixes, Suffixes, and Roots Activity
Build, read and write multi-syllable words using prefixes, suffixes, and base words with a fun word-building literacy activity.
- Free Plan
Suffix Mini Anchor Charts
Give your students a visual reminder of the meanings of 28 suffixes with a printable set of miniature anchor charts.
- Plus Plan
Wheely Wonderful Words – Overused Verbs
Get rid of those overused verbs with a word wheel of synonyms.
- 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.
- Free Plan
Prefix Worksheet Pack - 2nd Grade
Use this Prefix Worksheet Pack as an engaging prefix activity for Grade 2 that teach students how to use the most common prefixes.
- Free Plan
Affixes Word Building Puzzle Activity
Build words with affixes with a pack of printable word-building puzzles.
- Plus Plan
Synonyms Are the Same! - Vocabulary Worksheets
Practice identifying and using synonyms in sentences with a synonyms worksheet.
- 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
Which Homophone? Worksheets
Download this differentiated homophones worksheet to help your students become more familiar with this tricky vocabulary!
- Plus Plan
Noun Suffixes Worksheet Pack
Use this noun suffixes worksheet pack to help students recognize, apply and spell noun-forming suffixes such as ness, ment, ion, tion, ship and hood.
- Plus Plan
Prefix Puzzles – Printable Reading Center
Grow your students’ vocabularies with an engaging prefix puzzle activity.
- Plus Plan
Synonyms and Antonyms Presentation
Use this synonyms and antonyms presentation to expand your students’ vocabularies and teach them about the nuances between words.
- Plus Plan
Synonyms in Context – Interactive Activity
Teach synonyms in context with this interactive digital quiz that helps students recognize, compare and choose the best‑fit word within real sentences.
- Free Plan
Daily Vocabulary Dive - Synonyms and Antonyms Worksheet
Give your students a daily dose of synonym and antonym review with a 5-day vocabulary warm-up worksheet.
- Free Plan
Greek and Latin Roots Vocabulary Notebook
Enhance vocabulary containing Greek and Latin roots with a Google Slides interactive vocabulary notebook, also available in print format.
- Plus Plan
Greek and Latin Roots Practice Worksheet Bundle
Practice using vocabulary containing Greek roots and Latin roots with 24 weekly root word practice worksheets.
- 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
Plural Noun Anchor Charts
Help children grasp the tricky concept of pluralizing nouns by displaying these 8 plural noun anchor chart posters.
- Plus Plan
Word Forms in Action — Prefixes and Suffixes Worksheets
Use these Decoding Prefix and Suffix Worksheets to help students strengthen their word analysis and vocabulary skills.