Multiple-meaning words worksheets

By grade

• 3rd Grade A gentler on-ramp
• 4th Grade Right on level
• 5th Grade A step harder

What students need to know

Some words carry more than one meaning: a bat flies at night, and a bat hits a baseball. The rest of the sentence tells you which meaning is on duty.

This skill runs from 3rd grade through 5th grade. Pick a grade above for level-matched sentences, teaching notes, and worksheets.

Multiple-meaning words across the grades

3rd grade

Multiple-meaning words (teachers also say homographs) are single spellings doing several jobs: bark, ring, trunk, light. Third graders read a sentence and pick which meaning the word carries there, using the neighboring words as evidence.

4th grade

Fourth graders meet meanings that live in different worlds: a court for tennis and a court for a judge, a draft of an essay and a draft under the door. Choosing correctly is context-clue reading with the training wheels off, and it doubles as vocabulary growth.

5th grade

Fifth graders work the pairs that school subjects depend on: a church organ and a body organ, a marble column and a column of numbers, a school of fish and a school with desks. Textbooks switch meanings without warning; this sheet builds the reflex to notice.