Search Action Verb Educational Resources

“But wait,” you ask. “Aren’t all verbs action verbs?” Yes and no -- verbs describe actions, but some are more colorful than others. Learn some sweet action verbs to help energize your writing and make it more vivid. Great for storytelling, our lists of action verbs and activities designed to punch up your writing will make Language Arts learning easy and fun.

In order to write a complete sentence, your students will need to have an actor or a noun. But that noun needs to be doing something. Describing what physical or mental activity they are doing requires a special type of word; an action verb.

Action verbs or dynamic verbs are used to describe a physical or mental action. At first, your students may think that all verbs are action verbs. Some verbs, however, are more abstract. These verbs represent states of being. While technically a verb, it is not something someone can do. These verbs are called non action or stative verbs.

Determine if something is an action verb is rather simple. Have your students look at a sentence and answer, “Is this verb something a person can do, be, or feel?” Some examples of action verbs are:

• Run
• Act
• Agree
• Ask
• Hop
• Insult
• Think
• Wait
• Read

These verbs all have at least three states: present, past, and future. The past tense of verbs will often be different. Though we often add the -ed suffix at the end, there are some verbs that are written differently to convey past tense:

• Run - Ran
• Agree - Agreed
• Swim - Swam
• Sleep - Slept

Understanding how to identify action verbs can help your students ensure they are constructing complete sentences when writing. Using the activities and worksheets provided by Education.com above may help you teach your students to identify and use these action or dynamic verbs moving forward.