Compound Words Educational Resources

There are three groups of compound words: hyphenated, closed, and open. Closed compound words do not have a hyphen, but still merge two words together to make a new word. Open compound words remain two separate words, but still create a new meaning.

Students can use Education.com worksheets to get creative, and add many compound words to their vocabulary, whether closed, hyphenated, or open.

Because students get excited about tapping into their knowledge, you’ll find them eager to create compound words. There are three types of compound words.

At first, open compound words may be simplest for students. Open compound words have separate and distinct words that carry a new meaning. The following are examples of open compound words:

• School bus
• Car wash
• French fries
• Ice cream

Hyphenated compound words may seem slightly more complicated to students, but are also easy to understand once students have examples to follow. To form hyphenated compound words, simply bring the two words together, but keep them separated by inserting a hyphen in between:

• Father-in-law
• Left-handed
• Long-term
• Life-size

Closed compound words sometimes seem crammed together, but if students look closely they will often find the exact spelling of each word perfectly preserved. Closed compound word examples include:

• Firefly
• Newspaper
• Sailboat
• Watermelon

When it comes to recognizing compound words within larger texts, students who first practice recognizing syllables will find it much easier. By being able to identify where parts of words begin and end, students will be able to pick out the different parts of a compound word much more quickly.

One classroom activity idea is to have students call out different words, which the teacher writes on the board. Once 15-20 words are on the board, students can take turns trying to put them together to form compound words.

For effective independent work, have students play with the Education.com worksheets and activities above to grow comfortable with compound words.