Acquistion of vocabulary is an important predictor of in-depth reading, i.e. reading comprehension, education in general and lifelong learning. With regard to that, it is important to encourage pupils to learn new words and their meanings, and to use those words in spoken and written language. There is an insufficient number of studies on the acquisition of semantic structure of vocabulary in Croatia, especially of those studies that deal with the acquisition of vocabulary structure (primarily semantic) of pupils in the 4th grade of primary education. In view of the aforementioned, the main goal of this research paper is to analyze how much the acquisition of vocabulary can be encouraged during the educational process, especially by the pupils passing from one-teacher-education to subject teaching in primary education. In the paper, there are exercises presented, that can help pupils/students to deepen and broaden their vocabulary and learn the meaning of new words. For the purpose of making this research paper, an online survey was condoned among teachers of one-teacher-education in Croatia. With a semistructured anonymous online survey, students of 4th and 5th year of Faculty of teacher education, University of Zagreb from Petrinja, Čakovec and Zagreb were also surveyed. The results of both surveys were statistically processed in MS Office (Excel) and graphically displayed in the research paper. The analysis of the results points to a great indifference of children towards learning new words, as well as the need for the unknown word to be explained. Precisely that is the result of casual or superficial reading instead of in-depth reading during a class session. The surveyed teachers offer various exercises and examples that can assist future and current teachers in their work. Moreover, the results obtained will encourage teachers to insist on the need for teaching vocabulary structure and to make students aware of the importance of learning new vocabulary to be successfully educated. The results of the surveyed students show that, after the completed courses and the read works of Children’s literature, they do not show the knowledge of meaning of certain words. In view of such results, it can be called into question how competent the students are to broaden the pupils’ vocabulary and explain unknown words. Considering this, more attention should be payed to learning the meaning of words in the education of future teachers, in order for them to be able to pass on their knowledge to their future pupils.