Synonyms and Antonyms Background Information for Teachers, Parents and Caregivers

This page provides information to support educators and families in teaching K-3 students about synonyms and antonyms. It is designed to complement the Synonyms and Antonyms topic page on BrainPOP Jr.

Explain to your children that they use synonyms and antonyms everyday without even knowing it. Synonyms are words that have the same or similar definitions. For example, a few synonyms for smart are intelligent, brilliant, clever, or genius. Encourage your children to think of other synonyms.

Synonyms can make writing more powerful and bring words to life. Children should always look for ways to bolster their sentences by using strong verbs and vivid adjectives. We recommend watching the Similes movie together as a review. They can read what they have written and find synonyms for lackluster words. A thesaurus is a book that lists words and their synonyms. Explain that a thesaurus is different from a dictionary, which lists words and their definitions. Some thesauruses also provide antonyms for words.

An antonym is a word with the opposite meaning of another word. For example, a few antonyms for bored are excited, thrilled, energized, and wound up. Some words have only one antonym, such as black and white. Other words have many antonyms.

Brainstorming and using synonyms and antonyms are great ways to increase your children’s vocabulary and expose them to different words that are above their grade level. Reading also exposes your children to new words. Students should read actively and write down new words in their notebooks or have a dictionary handy to look up difficult words.