Word search puzzles are letter and word focused activities that provide students with a sea of letters arranged up and down. Hidden within that sea of letters are words that are usually centered on a theme or are provided in a word bank. One of the best strategies for attacking these puzzles is to look for common vowel and consonant pairings. These will often lead you to the bigger words that are attached to them. Often these pairs are found at the end of the words and will help you position the word as a whole. If you view the puzzle from the bottom up, often words will call out to you. I also find talking out loud to myself to be very helpful for locating words.
Word searches have a great range of benefits for students. The obviously help improve selling skills and boost your memory by activating your mental vocabulary. These types of puzzles encourage problem solving and strategic word semantics. If you create a competition in your class, I find that students improve their motivation levels greatly. Below you will find a huge offering of printable word search puzzle worksheets. As you scroll down you will find word search puzzles that target vocabulary from specific grade level word sets. I would suggest using a highlighter to help you when finding the letters of each word. I would also suggest two different highlighter colors to differentiate (there is a vocabulary word for you) between words. You will also find puzzles that are broken down into education tiers (elementary, middle, high). The grade leveled puzzle do not include word banks. As you make your down through these sixty word search worksheets you will find word banks available towards the bottom of the page.
