Vocabulary games for secondary lessons

Which words are worth the time

A common way to think about this comes from Isabel Beck and colleagues, who sort words into three tiers:

• Tier 1: everyday words most pupils already know, like house or happy.
• Tier 2: words that turn up across subjects and in good writing, like analyse, significant or reluctant. These pay off the most.
• Tier 3: subject words, like photosynthesis, alliteration or denominator. Essential in their subject, rare outside it.

Most of the games below work for both Tier 2 and Tier 3 words. The trick is to keep coming back to the same words over weeks, not to cover as many as possible once.

Six vocabulary games

1. Name as many as you can

Give a category from the topic, like name an organ in the human body or name a literary device, and two minutes. Pupils list as many as they can, then compare. Lists are harder than single questions, because pupils have to search their memory rather than recognise an answer.

2. Rarest right answer

Everyone gives one answer to the same prompt, and right answers that fewer pupils gave score more. It pushes pupils past the first word that comes to mind towards the ones they half know, which is exactly where vocabulary grows. This is the idea behind Nichenaut (below).

3. Word families

Put a root on the board, like bio, graph or port, and pupils find as many words built on it as they can, with a meaning for each. Good in science and languages.

4. Definition to word

Read out a definition, and pupils write the word on mini whiteboards. Then flip it: show the word, and pupils write the definition in their own words. The second way round is harder and more useful.

5. Taboo

A pupil describes a key word to their team without using the word itself or two banned words underneath it. Photosynthesis without plant or light is a real test of understanding.

6. Use it in a sentence

At the end of a lesson, give three key words and ask for one sentence that uses all three correctly. It checks meaning, not just recall, and makes a quick plenary.

Vocabulary on the board with Nichenaut

Nichenaut is a free browser quiz for pupils aged 13 and over. In class mode the teacher's screen shows a prompt, every pupil types one answer on their own device, and the board then reveals every answer the class gave, from the most common to the rarest. Each prompt has a long list of accepted answers, so a pupil who knows a less common word is rewarded for it.

The words and language topic has prompts like these:

• Name a figure of speech or literary device
• Name an irregular verb
• Name a word with a silent B
• Name a word that ends in -ous
• Name a word that begins with "micro"
• Name a Latin word or phrase used in English
• Name a French word or phrase used in English
• Name an English word that comes from Spanish

And subject topics have their own key word prompts:

• Name an organ or other body part inside you
• Name a type of cell in the human body
• Name a maths word or topic
• Name a shape
• Name a historical period or era
• Name a feature of the ocean floor or an ocean current

Class rooms take up to 25 pupils, need no accounts, have no chat, and show no adverts. A host can also add their own prompts under more options, for a unit's key words.

Try a words mission

Making the words stick

• Space it out. Bring the same words back next lesson, next week and next half term. Short and often beats long and once.
• Low stakes. Keep scores light, so pupils guess rather than leave a blank. A wrong guess you correct is still retrieval.
• Say it, then write it. Pupils who can say a word aloud are far more likely to use it in writing.
• Mix subjects. A Tier 2 word like evaluate means the same in history and science. Point that out.