Can You Spell Dictionary?

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

It is important to know how to spell words correctly so others can read them and understand what you are writing.

Let's learn how to use a dictionary and other reference materials to help us look up how to spell words.

• What is a dictionary?

A dictionary:

• → is a resource (can be a book or online)
• → has a lot of words in a language
• → tells you what those words mean
• → helps you spell those words
• → tells you how to pronounce (or say!) those words
• → gives you different versions of those words
• → tells you more information about those words

This lesson will cover how a dictionary helps you spell words when writing. You can also use a dictionary to fix the spelling if you spelled a word wrong in your writing.

• How do you use a dictionary that is a book?

First, it is important to know that the words in a dictionary are in alphabetical order. That means words that start with the letter A are first. Then, words that start with B are next and so on all the way to Z.

All the words in a dictionary are in alphabetical order based on their first letters, but there are a lot of words that start with each letter.

So, you have to look at the second letters and put those in alphabetical order too.

Look at aardvark and ape as an example. Both start with an A, so they will be at the beginning of the dictionary. To see which comes first, look at the second letter. The a in aardvark comes before the p in ape, so aardvark will come before ape.

Now, you will need to guess how to spell the first few letters of the word you want to look up. Turn to the pages with the words that start with those letters in the dictionary.

You will be able to find the word spelled correctly as well as the definition and other information about the word.

• How do you use a dictionary online?

There are several online dictionaries you can use like Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary.

Guess how to spell the word and type it into the search bar.

The dictionary will give you options. Select the word you wanted to see its proper spelling as well as the definition and other information.

• What are some other reference materials besides a dictionary that could help with spelling?

If the word you are trying to spell is written in a book you have nearby, you can look inside that book to see how it is spelled. Authors always spell the words correctly!

You could also look inside a thesaurus, which is set up exactly like a dictionary. However, instead of definitions, a thesaurus gives you a list of other words that mean the same thing as the word you are looking up.

For example, if you look up the word new in a thesaurus, you will see similar words like novel, original, or fresh.

• Is this making sense so far?

Great! Let's move on to the Got It? section to practice it together!