Kentucky Reading and Writing L.K.5.c

ELAKindergartenLanguage

The Standard

L.K.5: With guidance and support from adults, explore word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

Demonstrate an understanding of verbs and adjectives and their synonyms.

Kentucky Academic Standards for Reading and Writing (2025) · Vocabulary Acquisition and Use

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students find words that tell what someone does and words that describe someone or something. They suggest words with close meanings, such as leap for jump and glad for happy.
What Mastery Looks Like: Given “The happy dog jumps,” a student names jumps as the action and happy as a describing word. They can replace jumps with leaps and happy with glad.
Common Misconceptions: Students may call jump a describing word because it tells them something about the dog. They may offer an opposite, such as sad for happy, instead of a word with a close meaning.
How to Assess It: Show a picture of a happy child jumping and say, “The happy child jumps.” Ask each student to name the action and describing word, then give a close match for each.

Lesson moves

Give pairs picture cards labeled jump, leap, happy, and glad; have them sort actions and descriptions, then match close meanings.
Read “The small cat hops” and ask, “What does the cat do, and what word could replace small?”
Play synonym match: put small, happy, and jump on the board, then call out tiny, glad, and leap for teams to match.
At recess, point to a child jumping and ask if leaping fits; then describe a big ball and ask for another word for big.

Free download

A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to L.K.5.c, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.

PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.

Keep exploring

Grade, subject, topic, and the complete standard are prefilled. Create one free, no account needed.