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
Suffix Mini Anchor Charts
Give your students a visual reminder of the meanings of 28 suffixes with a printable set of miniature anchor charts.
- 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.
- 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
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
Prefix and Suffix Anchor Charts
Increase vocabulary skills with anchor charts about prefixes and suffixes.
- Free Plan
Word Power Vocabulary Worksheet
A comic book themed worksheet to use in the classroom when building vocabulary.
- Free Plan
Vocabulary Dice Roll Activity
6 vocabulary activities to use with a range of words.
- Free Plan
Super Synonyms List
Boost your students’ vocabularies with a synonyms list to reference in their daily writing lessons.
- 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.
- 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
Synonyms- Printable Flashcards
Build vocabulary skills with individual Synonym anchor chart flash cards.
- Plus Plan
Disappearing Snowman (Hangman Alternative)
Practice vocabulary and spelling skills with this interactive word guessing game.
- Free Plan
Fall Word Wall Vocabulary
Print a beautiful fall word wall display with a free autumn word wall printable.
- Free Plan
Using Clues to Determine Meaning Worksheet
Practice defining unfamiliar words by looking for context clues within a sentence.
- Free Plan
Prefix Worksheet: Un- and Dis-
Build vocabulary skills with a prefix worksheet featuring the prefixes Un- and Dis-.
- Plus Plan
Using Context Clues - Worksheet
A worksheet to practice using context clues.
- Plus Plan
Context Detectives Worksheet
A set of 3 worksheets for students to practice using context clues to identify the meaning of a word.
- Free Plan
Said is Dead List - Dialogue Tags
Help your students choose a variety of dialogue tags when writing with a fun ‘Said is Dead’ Dialogue Tag List.
- Free Plan
Which Homophone? Worksheets
Download this differentiated homophones worksheet to help your students become more familiar with this tricky vocabulary!
- Plus Plan
Building Words with Suffixes Sorting Activity
Build words by matching the root word to suffixes, recording the new words on the answer sheet.
- Free Plan
My Word of the Day Mat
A fun worksheet to use in the classroom when building vocabulary.
- 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.
- 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
Context Clues Scoot Activity
Use context clues to determine the meaning of an unfamiliar word.
- Plus Plan
Morphological Knowledge - Matching Activity
Review concepts learned in your prefix and suffix lessons by ensuring students understand word parts with a matching activity.
- Plus Plan
Dictionary Sorting Game
Get students in the habit of researching with our dictionary activity that helps learners match a word to its definition and part of speech.
- 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.
- Free Plan
Presidential Oath of Office - Vocabulary Activity
Learn new vocabulary while studying the Presidential Oath of Office with this differentiated activity.
- Plus Plan
Word Of The Week Template
A word of the week template with a variety of tasks to give context and meaning to a word.