How it works
- Pick a word set, such as animals, the farm or Halloween.
- Leave out any words you don’t want by tapping them.
- Tick the puzzles you want, and choose a theme for the page border.
- Download one PDF with every puzzle, then the answer keys at the back.
Why pictures help early readers
A picture tells a child what the word means before they can read it. Matching the picture to the word, finding it letter by letter in a grid and writing it in crossword squares all make children look closely at the letters of a word they already understand. That is how new words start to stick.
Four puzzles from one word set
Picture word search
The word bank shows each word with its picture. Words run across, down or diagonally, never backwards.
Match the pictures
Pictures on one side, words on the other, in a different order. Children draw a line from dot to dot.
Picture crossword
Each numbered clue is a picture. Children say the word, then write one letter in each square.
Colour and trace
A big outline picture to colour, its word to trace, and an empty line to write it alone.
In the Australian Curriculum
- Before schoolEarly Years Learning Framework Outcome 5: children are effective communicators, including early interest in words and print.
- FoundationBuilding vocabulary from familiar contexts and topics taught at school (AC9EFLA08), and reading familiar words (AC9EFLY14).
The curriculum doesn’t name word searches or crosswords, but it does ask Foundation children to learn words from familiar topics. Picking the word set that matches your current unit, like animals or under the sea, ties the puzzles to the vocabulary you are already teaching.
The fall and Halloween sets follow northern hemisphere seasons. In Australia autumn runs from March to May, and Halloween falls in spring, in Term 4.
Summarised in our own words from the Australian Curriculum: English, Version 9.0 (ACARA) and the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia, V2.0.
