Glossary
Elementary School Teacher Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential elementary school teacher terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key elementary school teacher vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in elementary school teacher training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Classroom management
- Keeping students focused.
- Curriculum
- The planned content and skills.
- Differentiation
- Adapting teaching for different needs.
- English learner
- A student learning English.
- Exit ticket
- A quick end-of-lesson check.
- Formative assessment
- Ongoing checks for understanding.
- Guided reading
- Small group reading instruction.
- IEP
- Individualized education program.
- Lesson plan
- A plan for teaching a lesson.
- MTSS
- Multi-tiered system of supports.
- Parent-teacher conference
- A meeting with families.
- Professional learning community
- Teachers collaborating to improve.
- Rubric
- A scoring guide.
- Standards
- What students should know at each grade.
- Summative assessment
- A final evaluation such as a unit test.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Elementary School Teacher practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Elementary School Teacher training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.