[A child's first dictionary should be a picture dictionary. When he is able to read independently, provide him with an appropriate dictionary such as the Scholastic Children's Dictionary. In its respellings it uses "uh" to indicate the schwa sound rather than using the schwa symbol. Their next dictionary should use the schwa symbol. Read aloud the following explanation of how to use a dictionary and follow along in whatever dictionary the child will be using. Of course he needs to know the alphabet.]

One of the most important books that you will ever have is a dictionary. It gives you the spelling, pronunciation, and meaning of words, and it may give a whole lot of other useful information. Let's look at a dictionary and see what information it gives.

Let's see how the main part of a dictionary is arranged. What does "arranged" mean? We'll look it up.

Words in the dictionary are listed in alphabetical order by each letter. Since "arranged" begins with "a," we turn to that section. Now we look at the guide words at the top of the page. The first guide word is the first word on the page, and the second guide word is the last word on the page. We thumb through the "a" word pages looking at the guide words for a word beginning with ar. Then we look for arr, arra, arran, and finally we find the entry for "arrange:"

(1) ar range - This is the base word. There will be a dot after ar showing where the writer can divide the word at the end of a line. (A hyphen instead of a dot is part of the spelling of a compound or double word like "hard-boiled.")

(2) /u'ranj/ - This is the "pronunciation spelling." Every dictionary does it somewhat differently. To understand what it means, look at the guide to pronunciation. You may find it at the beginning of the book, or, in larger dictionaries, at the bottom of each page or every other page. In place of the u there may a symbol which looks like an upside down e and is called a schwa. It stands for the "weak" vowel sound in a weak syllable, which is the /uh/ or /ih/ sound. There may be a high-set mark ( ' ) before the second syllable showing that it is strong. In some dictionaries an accent mark comes after the strong syllable.

(3) vb - This shows that the word is a verb, which is an action or being word.

(4) -ranged; -ranging; - These are other parts of the verb. The beginning ar is left off in order to save space. Some dictionaries may show the complete words for the other verb parts, "arranged, arranging, and arranges." We have found "arranged."

(5) In larger dictionaries the word's history or etymology is given. Many words are traced back to an ancient Greek or Latin word. We can see how words are related. We may learn that "arrange" comes from an old French word.

(6) "1: To put in proper order" - This is the beginning of the definition and the "1:" shows that the word has more than one meaning and that this is the oldest sense of the word. Look in a dictionary and notice how many words have more than one meaning.

Here are a few things that you should know about words.

(1) There are many cases in which different words have the same spelling. You have learned that such words are called homographs. For example, if we look up a word spelled b-o-w, we may find three main entries, and two entries show the word used in more than one sense.

1. bow /bou/ a verb as in "Will he bow his head?"
   
2. bow /bo/ a noun as in "There is a bow in the rod."
   
3. bow /bou/ a noun as in "Go to the bow of the ship."

Can you pronounce the word spelled b-o-w without seeing how the word is used in a sentence? Why not?

(2) Often two or three different words are pronounced the same but spelled differently. You learned that such words are called homophones or homonyms. When we look up the spelling of a homophone, the word we look up may be the wrong word. However, we can check the definition to see if it is the right word. For example, if we want the spelling for the word for a branch of a tree, which is pronounced /bou/, and if we look up "bow," we will not find a definition that fits. We need to know what other spellings there are for the /ou/ sound, and we may find that o-u-g-h is another spelling. So we look up "bough" and find that it means a "tree branch." A larger dictionary shows these other spellings for sounds under a table of "sound-spelling correspondences." You have studied "other spellings" for consonants and vowels in this program.

(3) A synonym of a word is another word in the same language having about the same meaning. A word may have more than one meaning and have a group of synonyms for each meaning. For example, The Random House Thesaurus, a handy pocket dictionary of synonyms and antonyms, shows synonyms for five senses of the word "big." The first synonym listed in the first sense is "large." Another synonym in this sense is "huge," but it means "very big."

(4) An antonym of "big" is a word of the opposite meaning such as "little."

(5) We have a lot of odd expressions called idioms that you can't figure out by combining the meanings of the words. An example is "stick one's neck out." What does it mean? Idioms may be listed in a good dictionary under the principal noun or verb or the most significant word. For example, in Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, we can find under "stick" "stick one's neck out," "stick in one's craw," "stick it to," "stick to one's guns," and "stuck on."

Let's have a checkup. What is the meaning of the word "amiable" and how is it pronounced? Look it up in the dictionary. Think of a synonym. Think of an antonym.

[One interesting syllabication problem is that in many words the syllables seem to divide in the middle of a consonant. Take the word "given." Webster's old New International, Second Edition, divides the syllables this way: giv-en. The pronunciation is (giv'-en) with a short e sound. The Webster's Collegiate, 10th Edition, divides it the same way, giv-en; however, substituting /uh/ for the schwa, the pronunciation, is \'gi-vuhn\, which has not been followed by most other dictionaries. Perhaps they should show the pronunciation this way: /'giv-vuhn/.]

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