From the cover, paperback or hard cover, highlighting an agreeable grouping of child pleasing items from a moveable blue robot, to tot’s old time hand powered top toy, to crayons and a blossom in addition to that bright eyed pup center front; Houghton Mifflin’s American Heritage First Dictionary invites little learner’s to pick up, turn pages and talk about. 

   I find that Little Learners tend to be fascinated by sounds, words and reading. This recently updated, esteemed lexicon; can help instill self-confidence as children are learning to read. Bursting with more than 2,000 clearly defined words besides some 850 full-color photos and illustrations augmenting the characterizations draw attention to each page.  Dictionaries are always a big hit in our classroom. 

With needs of children at the forefront of decision making regarding word choice; clarifications and specimen sentences are merged into text to supplement meaning as  presented in kid amicable prose well within the understanding of most 6 – 8 year olds; Houghton Mifflin’s American Heritage First Dictionary always received a good bit of usage in our Osage County First Grade classroom.  

  Having nearly 300 innovative attribute notes meant to help expand user lexis along with illustrating, building on understanding of opposites, rhyming and individual word usage; this specific ‘big kid’, 416 page edition is geared principally for the younger scholars learning in the Primary Grades.

  I find specific dictionary tasking to be a central tool useful for strengthening good language arts skills development among the Primary Grade Learner.  Trying to figure out how to go about actually locating words when using a dictionary is a major facet of our learning for quite a few weeks during the early part of the school year. 

    While it is true that most kids are well able to recite the alphabet as they leave Kindergarten; it is a tad more problematic to insert their alphabet recitation skill over into understanding that we check the words in the ‘b’ section to find the information for the word ‘box’. 

    I find Little Learners tend to do one of two things when we first begin searching for words; either a child will quickly flip pages hastily, while NOT looking at the book only to pronounce NOT HERE after a few seconds. OR a child will begin slowly turning page by page beginning with the first page filled with A words whether the word searched for is ant, goat or zebra. 

    It does take talking together as a group and understanding of specific directions regarding where to begin looking in the dictionary for a word by deciding what the first letter of the word is.  Once that hurdle is cleared; dictionary work begins in earnest.

   For the reason that I personally love words and word puzzles, and books; I want to inculcate some of that love in my students.  We use our paperback a b c word books and larger dictionaries on an ongoing basis throughout the school year.

    Foundation, preliminary, activities include use of alphabet sheets and practice in finding explicit words to match each letter.  As Little Learners gain understanding, hone skill and are becoming comfortable in their ability to locate a particular word; then we move on to how to use guide words found at the top of the page as well as where in the alphabet a particular letter is located i.e. b is near the beginning, m near the middle and w near the end. 

   Realizing that d is close to the beginning of alphabet enables Little Learners to home in to where in the dictionary the d words are likely to be found as opposed to those beginning with g, r or v. 

I am always gratified to find Little Learners regularly ask to take one or another edition of our classroom dictionaries to their DEAR offices for reading during our extended DEAR reading activities.  

Happy to recommend Houghton Mifflin’s American Heritage, hard cover, First Dictionary designed for use in Primary grades. For the classroom bookshelf, school and public library, for gifting a word loving child, or for child to gift the new class on the first day of the new school term.