Years 2–6: Vocabulary Routines Printable Vocabulary Mats
Vocabulary Routines | Printable Vocabulary Mats | Years 2–6
Do your students meet a new word on Monday and forget it by Friday?
Vocabulary Routines is a set of 16 printable vocabulary mats that give students a clear, repeatable way to learn, explore and use new words. Each routine comes as a Guided mat with prompts and sentence starters, and an Open mat for confident students. Every mat has a ‘My word’, ‘Our topic’ or ‘Our text’ line, so the same mats work with any word list, class text or unit, all year. A teacher guide with 17 ready-to-teach lesson plans shows you how to introduce each routine in about 45 minutes.
Every routine follows the same steps
Choose the words → Model it → Say it → Record it → Use it again
Students rate how well they know topic words before a science unit, use clues in a class novel to work out what “reluctant” means, build a word family tree from “act”, order “warm, hot, boiling” on a word cline, and swap a tired word like “big” for a more precise one in their own writing.
What's Included?
- 32 A4 vocabulary mats: 16 routines × Guided and Open versions
- 16 routines in four groups: Knowing a Word, Word Parts, Word Relationships and Using Words
- Teacher guide with step-by-step instructions on how to use the mats
- Routines at a Glance pages showing each routine’s group and what it’s best for
- 17 ready-to-teach lesson plans: an introduction to vocabulary routines, plus one lesson per mat
- Learning intention, success criteria and a teacher tip for every lesson
- Teaching tips for choosing words, support, extension and assessing word knowledge
- Curriculum links to the Australian Curriculum v9.0 and the NSW English K–10 Syllabus
The Routines
- Knowing a Word: Knowledge Rating, Word Map, Picture It, Word Detective
- Word Parts: Word Breakdown, Word Family Tree, Word Origins
- Word Relationships: Word Cline, Synonym & Antonym Web, Word Sort, Connect Two, Shades of Meaning
- Using Words: Word Upgrade, Word Collector, Sentence Stretch, Word in My Writing
Why Vocabulary Routines?
- Students learn a few routines well and reuse them, rather than starting a new worksheet each time
- Not tied to a unit, so they work with any word list, text or topic
- Guided and Open versions let you differentiate without changing the routine
- Students meet new words many times, in talk, reading and writing
- Black-and-white pages that print well and slip into plastic sleeves for reuse
- Works without printing too: students can draw the layout in their books or use mini whiteboards
Pair with Visible Thinking Routines | Printable Thinking Mats for a complete set of literacy thinking tools.
Resource Details
- Focus: Vocabulary, word knowledge and word choice
- Year Levels: Years 2–6
- Format: Printable PDF (A4, black and white)
- Length: 49 pages
- Time: Introduce each routine in about 45 minutes, then reuse it all year
This is a digital resource. You'll get an instant download link by email straight after checkout, and on your order confirmation page.
Yes. Every Hello Primary resource is written by an Australian primary teacher and aligned to the NSW English K–10 Syllabus and the Australian Curriculum v9.0. The curriculum links for this resource are included in the download.
Some Hello Primary resources are editable, such as our Canva frameworks and editable rubrics. If a resource is editable, the description will say so. If it isn't mentioned, the resource isn't editable.
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