Academic Vocabulary Worksheets

Related ELA Standard: RI.4.4

Core Standard
Answer Keys Here

The fundamental skill in the English language is to be able to have an understanding of the words that are being presented to you whether they are in written or verbal form. Students often will see a new word and be caught like a deer in headlights. There is a clear process students should learn and be experienced in to make this task easy. The most difficult type of vocabulary word to come across is a word that has multiple meanings. In order to gain a good deal of proficiency with these types of words, you will need to take on a good level of practice. The worksheets in this section will hone your skills with words quickly and easily.

Academic Vocabulary Worksheets:

Mother Nature Recycles! - The decomposers are key to Mother Nature's clean up efforts. This set of vocabulary is rooted in the scientific community.

Another Bird Story - See if you can pick off the terms one by one. This passage is based on travels of birds during the American Civil War. Read the passage explain the meaning of some choice words.

A Place of Refuge - Somewhat of a cloze activity that you need to fill. Use context clues to fill in the blanks in the paragraph.

Aim of the Scout Movement - The scouts were developed with the thought of helping young men to work with their hands.

What is Soil? - Soil is made up mostly of bits of weathered rock, minerals, and hummus. Can you tell us what these terms mean?

The Landlord's Mistake - Match each bold term to its synonym. You should use the context from the reading passage above it to help you along.

The Porcupine - Porcupines grow new quills to replace the ones they lose. Lets see is you keep up with your rodent vocabulary.

How to Build a Snow House - Igloos are wider at the bottom and curve up into an arch. We introduce the concept of unfamiliar compound words.

The Shephard Boy Painter - Find the word "pasturing" in the first paragraph. What do you think the sheep are doing and where?

How are Volcanos Formed? - Based on the reading, circle what you think each of these terms means?

Whispers - Circle the correct answer. These terms are a bit more advanced and plenty of context is provided for students to work with.

Invertebrates - Invertebrates are animals without backbones. Examples of invertebrates are sponges, jellyfish and worms.

Eat Well! - Everyone needs to eat nutritious food to be healthy. These term are synonymous with eating healthy and well balanced meals.

Penguins - Penguins are native to Antarctica. They have thick layers of fat called blubber, just like whales, seals, and sea bird.

Metamorphosis - The stage in between the larval and the adult stage, in a complete metamorphosis is called the pupa, or pupal stage.

What Do You Do When You Confront a New Word?


Here are two ways you can confront a new term easily.


Look for it in the Dictionary


A dictionary is a very helpful tool that contains meanings and definitions of all the words in the English language. There are many pocket-sized dictionaries that you can buy and keep with you at all times. This would help you in figuring out the meaning of a difficult term in no time. You can also download the application of a dictionary on your phone so that it is easier to carry at all times. A dictionary contains credible information that is completely true.


Use Affixes and Root Words


Not everyone carries a dictionary at all times. It can be quite a task for some. All phone dictionaries are not available online. So, sometimes you will have to depend on other options to guess the meaning of a new term. One of the very helpful ways to do so is by breaking the word down. By breaking it down you will get a prefix, root, and suffix. These three elements of a word contain the entire meaning of it. You can start with the root. All words have one or more roots in it. A root word is the original form of the word. It has a fixed meaning and it cannot be broken down further. You can take out the root from the bigger word and guess the meaning. Chances are that you will already know the meaning of the root because they are taught at a young age. The next step is to take out the prefixes and suffixes from the word. They are the two types of affixes. The prefix comes before the root word and suffix comes after the root word. They have predefined meanings. You can combine the meaning of the root word and the affixes to accurately guess the meaning of the new and unfamiliar word.


Use Context and Surrounding Sentences


When you spot a word in a reading passage that is unfamiliar and you wish to determine the meaning, start by isolating that word and break down the sentence that it appears within. Start by determining if it is a negative or positive term as far as the ideas, thoughts, or feelings that are attached to it. Once you determine if the term has a positive or negative feeling attached to it, move on to sentences that appear just before or directly after that sentence and see if they give you any indication as to the affect the word had in our discovery sentence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Mother Nature Recycles! Preview