Antonyms Teaching Resources

Are you teaching antonyms this school year? Printable worksheets, digital activities, and more options for the ELA teacher have been created just for you by the Teach Starter teacher team!

Explore a curriculum-aligned resource collection full of options for your writing centers or reading centers with editable options to help differentiate instruction to ensure your individual students have everything they need to meet Common Core and state-level standards.

Has it been a while since you were teaching this part of the ELA curriculum? Our teacher team knows what it’s like to suddenly teach a brand-new grade level after years away, so we’ve put together a quick refresher on antonyms! Read on for a guide on the meaning of antonym, how we use antonyms, and even how to pronounce this tricky word!

Definition of Antonym

The obvious place to start teaching this topic is with a definition, isn't it? Your students will need to know what an antonym is and how it differs from a synonym. Put in the most simple terms that kids can understand, an antonym is a word that means the opposite of another word.

For example, "tall" is the antonym of "short" because the words mean the opposite of one another.

What Is an Antonym?

Let's dig a little deeper than that definition and take a look at what an antonym actually is and does in written texts.

Typically adjectives or adverbs, these words are valuable for young writers to learn as they help us describe things more precisely and increase our vocabulary.

Alongside learning about synonyms, teaching students about this type of vocabulary word also helps them as they begin to compare and contrast things. After all, when we know that something is not like something else, it helps us identify what that thing is!

How Do You Pronounce Antonym?

Are your students' tongues tripping over the pronunciation of this word? Have them slow down their speech and try breaking it up into three sounds — [AN] + [TUH] + [NIM].

Antonym Examples for Kids

Using examples can help your students start to grasp the concept of how to use these words in their own writing. Here are some fun examples of antonyms that kids always love:

Lazy — Active
Boring — Fun
Yummy — Yucky

5 Types of Antonyms

It may be a fairly simple thing to explain that two words with opposite meanings fit into the antonym category, but we would be remiss if we didn't address that there are various types! Understanding the way these break down can help students better understand how to use words effectively to convey their intended meaning.

The five types of antonyms our students work with are:

Gradable antonyms

These are antonyms that represent opposite ends of a spectrum and can be used to describe different degrees of a quality. Some examples include:

Hot and cold
Tall and short
Big and small
Fast and slow
Young and old

Complementary antonyms

This type of antonym represents a binary relationship where the presence of one implies the absence of the other. In other (more kid-friendly) terms, they're opposites but they work together to describe the same thing. For example, "on" and "off" are complementary antonyms. If you want to describe a light switch, you might say "turn the light on" or "turn the light off." Both sentences include antonyms to describe the same action.

Some examples include:

Alive and dead
Male and female
On and off
Push and pull
Day and night

Complementary antonyms are helpful because they give us a complete picture of something by showing us both sides of it. It's like having two puzzle pieces that fit together perfectly to make a complete picture.

Relational antonyms

This type of antonym helps us to describe a relationship between two concepts. Some examples include:

Parent and child
Teacher and student
Borrower and lender
Employer and employee

Auto-antonyms

These are words that can be very confusing to kids. That's because these words are technically the same, but they have opposite meanings depending on the context in which they are used. Some examples include:

Cleaved (to stick together) and cleaved (to split apart)
Sanction (to permit) and sanction (to punish)
Dust (to remove dust) and dust (to add dust)
Oversight (to supervise) and oversight (a mistake)

Converse antonyms

Our final type on this list is a set of words that describe the relationship between two concepts where one concept implies the other. Some examples include:

Buy and sell
Borrow and lend
Teach and learn
Above and below

Fun Antonym Activities for Kids

Teaching antonyms can be exciting, fun, and engaging if you use the right resources, but it can be boring, dull, and tedious if you don't get it right (see what we did there?!). This collection of antonym activities for kids is stocked with ideas to make sure your antonym lessons are the former: