Homophones Teaching Resources
Teach students to identify homophones and tell these similar-sounding words apart this year with printable worksheets, digital reading center activities, games and more teaching resources designed for teaching second- or third-grade ELA!
This curriculum-aligned resource collection was created by teachers for teachers like you to save time on your lesson plans with editable options to help differentiate instruction for your learners. Explore Common Core curriculum-aligned activities, worksheets and more!
New to teaching this part of the ELA curriculum or just looking for fresh ideas to engage your learners? Read on for a primer from our teacher team!
What Is a Homophone? A Kid-Friendly Definition
First things first! How do you explain these tricky words to your students? Here's a simple and kid-friendly homophone definition to help:
Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. These words can be tricky, so we need to learn strategies such as using context clues to tell them apart.
Homophone Examples
OK, that sounds simple enough, but what exactly are we talking about? Let's explore some homophone examples that tend to trip up students who are still building their skills!
Here are some of the most common homophones in the English language:
- their/there/they're
- to/too/two
- your/you're
- here/hear
- where/wear
- bear/bare
- eight/ate
- meet/meat
- heel/heal
- ant/aunt
- hair/hare
Homophones vs. Homonyms vs. Homographs
As if homophones themselves weren't tricky enough, it can be hard for kids (and adults!) to tell the difference between homophones, homonyms and homographs. So let's break them down!
- Homophones — These are words that sound the same but have different meanings and may also have different spellings.
- Homonyms — These are words that are spelled the same and may or may not sound the same, but they have different meanings.
- Homographs — These are words that are spelled the same but may have different pronunciations and meanings.
