Homonyms, homophones, and homographs

Students combine text, images, voice narration, and video to help them better understand the meaning of words that sound the same, but are spelled differently or are spelled the same and pronounced differently.

Engage

Homophones, words that sound the same, but are spelled differently, are a great place to start introducing students to tricky pieces of the English language.

Hook students by reading Brain P Cleary's fun story How Much Can a Bare Bear Bear?. This story is fun to listen to, but it is also helpful to show students the text, so they can see how many ways words can vary in spelling and pronunciation.

Challenge your students with activities that ask them to match or correctly spell/label homophone image pairs.

Match Homophones Activity

Label Homophones Activity

Working as a class to create a list of homophones you have not yet encountered. Start in class and let students add to the list over several days so that students can talk to friends and family and identify even more.

Create

Assign a template filled with common homonyms, so everyone builds proficiency.

Homophones Book

Homophone Pairs - 4 page template

Then, have students choose a homophone pair from the list your class created. They can start a new, blank Wixie project and use the paint tools to illustration, the text tools to label, and the microphone to narrate their sentences.

Share

If students created homophone books, send the project URL to families so students can read and review at home.

Print the projects at full-page size to hang around your classroom. You can also make flash cards by printing at trading cards or postcard size.

Use the Project Wizard to collect all student work into one file. Then run as a slide show to review as a class or show off at an assembly!

Extension

After tackling homophones with students, use this process to learn about homonyms (pronounced and spelled the same) and the more advanced homographs which are spelled the same, but pronounced differently.