Dawdling is doing it slowly. Procrastinating is putting off starting.
Both words describe someone who is not getting on with things, so children treat them as the same complaint. They happen at different moments.
Dawdling happens once you are already on your way. A child who dawdles to school stops at every puddle, reads every poster and arrives just as the bell goes. They are moving, just far more slowly than they need to.
Procrastinating happens before you begin. A child who procrastinates over their homework sharpens every pencil, tidies the pencil case and suddenly offers to help with the washing up, all so the homework does not have to start yet.
To walk or do something slowly because you are wasting time.
Similar: linger, lag, drag
To keep putting off something you should do now.
Similar: delay, stall, dawdle
In a cloze sentence like 'She ___ all week and only started her project on Sunday night', procrastinated is the answer: she was not doing it slowly, she was not doing it at all. Knowing which word belongs to 'slowly' and which to 'later' picks the right option when both are offered.
Definitions and example sentences on this page are the ones a child sees inside Wordrealm, taken from our list of over 1,100 words. It is free to browse, with nothing to sign up for.
Plain-English guides to each test, from the councils’ own pages: Kent Test · Medway Test · Bucks Secondary Transfer Test