Build Your Own Core Vocabulary Board
Choose the words that fit your child or student, preview the board, then print it or use it right on a tablet. No sign-up, nothing saved, nothing sent anywhere.
Choose words on the left to build your board.
How to use this with your child or student
- Start small. Six to twelve words is plenty for a first board — you can always build a second one later.
- Model first. Point to or tap a word yourself as you say it during real moments, rather than asking a child to produce it on command.
- This works at any age or stage. The same core words support a toddler's first board and an older student's more advanced one — what changes is how many words you select, not which words exist.
- Print on cardstock and laminate for daily use, or keep this page open on a tablet so tapping a word speaks it aloud.
About this tool
This word bank is based on the Universal Core Vocabulary (36 words), developed by the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Additional early-childhood vocabulary words have been added by Educatedly beyond the original list.
This tool is meant to support communication at home or in the classroom. It isn't a replacement for an evaluation or a personalized plan from a speech-language pathologist. If you have concerns about a child's communication development, talk with a pediatrician or a speech-language pathologist.
This tool was built with AI assistance. See our AI Usage Policy for details on how it works. Nothing you select here is recorded, tracked, or sent to any server — the board is built and the PDF is generated entirely in your own browser.