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!
- Free Plan
My Word of the Day Mat
A fun worksheet to use in the classroom when building vocabulary.
- Plus Plan
Reading and Writing Nonfiction Text: Earth Day Close Read Worksheets
Enhance your students' comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills with this nonfiction Earth Day passage and accompanying activities.
- Free Plan
Paired Passage Worksheets-Mammals vs. Reptiles
Compare mammals vs. reptiles and add to your reading instruction with leveled nonfiction, compare and contrast passages, and worksheets.
- Free Plan
Last One Standing Active Game
An active game that allows students to build their vocabulary knowledge.
- 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
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
Which Homophone? Worksheets
Download this differentiated homophones worksheet to help your students become more familiar with this tricky vocabulary!
- Free Plan
Adding Suffixes - Vocabulary Worksheet
Review concepts related to suffixes with a printable grammar worksheet.
- Free Plan
Prefix Fun! - Cut and Paste Worksheet
Cut and paste to build words with prefixes with an fun and free prefix worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Using a Thesaurus - Worksheets and Anchor Charts
Practice using a thesaurus with a printable thesaurus anchor chart and differentiated practice worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Earth Day Vocabulary and Writing Pack
Help your young students learn and write about Earth Day with an illustrated word wall and writing prompts.
- Plus Plan
Write With Your Senses: Daily Descriptive Writing Prompts
Inspire your students to write descriptively using our 20 daily descriptive writing prompts slide deck and graphic organizer.
- Free Plan
Prefix Worksheet: Un- and Dis-
Build vocabulary skills with a prefix worksheet featuring the prefixes Un- and Dis-.
- Plus Plan
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
Word Power Vocabulary Worksheet
A comic book themed worksheet to use in the classroom when building vocabulary.
- Free Plan
Synonyms- Printable Flashcards
Build vocabulary skills with individual Synonym anchor chart flash cards.
- Free Plan
Prefix and Suffix Anchor Charts
Increase vocabulary skills with anchor charts about prefixes and suffixes.
- Plus Plan
Context Clues Task Cards
Use this set of 20 task cards to help students define new vocabulary words by identifying context clues within sentences.
- Free Plan
In My Classroom Concept Book
A printable concept book for children to discuss things around their classroom.
- Plus Plan
Comprehension Task Cards - Finding Word Meaning In Context
A set of comprehension task cards to help students find word meaning in context when reading.
- Plus Plan
Compound Words - Worksheet Pack
Practice using compound words in sentences with. a pair of printable compound word worksheets for older students.
- Free Plan
Read the Room - Classroom Labels With Pictures
Label where school supplies and equipment are housed in your classroom with free printable classroom labels with pictures.
- Plus Plan
Suffix Stories - Morphology Passages
Practice reading, defining, and using words suffixes with a pack of suffix-focused reading passage worksheets.
- Free Plan
Plural Nouns Chart - Printable Plural Rules Guide
Give your students a reference guide to help them remember all of the different plural rules.
- Free Plan
Synonyms and Antonyms Worksheet - Color By Code
Help Gran choose her next quilt design with a Synonyms and Antonyms Color-by-Code Worksheet.
- Free Plan
Vocabulary Builder: Synonym Worksheet
Practice synonym matching with this cut and paste worksheet.
- Free Plan
Presidential Oath of Office - Vocabulary Activity
Learn new vocabulary while studying the Presidential Oath of Office with this differentiated activity.
- Plus Plan
Pollinators – Comprehension Task
An article and comprehension task about pollinators.
- Plus Plan
Spelling Words with -s, -es, and -ies Worksheets
Practice using the inflectional endings -s, -es, and -ies with a pack of English worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Antonyms - Vocabulary Crossword Puzzle
Turn your language learners into vocabulary superstars with a fun antonym crossword puzzle.
- Plus Plan
Synonym and Antonym Posters
Print a pair of handy synonym and antonym anchor charts for your students to reference during writing lessons.
- Plus Plan
Read and Write Compound Words Worksheet
Read and write compound words with a set of fill-in and cut and paste worksheet.
- 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