Guide Words and the Dictionary

By the time your child has mastered alphabetizing to the third letter, you should bring the dictionary into some of your weekly lessons. It is not necessary to buy a children's dictionary for this. You may already have a good dictionary at your home. If you do not have a good dictionary then get one. It can be a paperback or hardback, what ever your budget allows. If you have the means, try to get a paperback dictionary for each child. I prefer Merriam-Webster dictionaries.

You should go over the parts of the dictionary every time you use it for the first 5 or 6 times. At the start of each year, you may need to reintroduce the parts of the dictionary to young children.

Introducing the Dictionary

Start by having the child open the dictionary in the middle. Ask him what letter the words begin with on the page that he opened. Have him close the book and open it several times in the middle of the book. This is just to show him he doesn't start at the beginning of the dictionary to find a word that starts with T. Ask him to find a word that starts with an l or a k (or whichever letter is just before the one in the middle of his dictionary). Watch how quickly he finds the word, if he has trouble, keep doing this for several days until he understands how to find a word that starts with a certain letter.

Introducing Guide Words

Once your child has opened his dictionary lots of times and can find words from any letter in the alphabet it is time to explain guide words. 

Have your child to open his dictionary on any page near the middle. Ask him if there are two words on the very top of the page. If your child can find these words, tell him what they are, if he can't show him the words and tell him that they are guide words. Tell him that guide words tell the first word and the last word on that page (or two page spread, some dictionaries differ) and that the words on the page will be in between the guide words in alphabetical order. The guide words are there to help them locate the words quickly.

*Guide words can be very confusing to a child. Be patient and explain what they are during each lesson that you teach about guide words. Your child may need to be reminded what guide words are after summer breaks.

Guide Words Activity: 

Use your word cards for this activity as well as the guide words worksheet. The printables are at the top of this page. Note: The word cards that are linked on this page are the same words cards that are on the ABC Order -- Sorting Cards web page.

Get your word cards. Make four small piles, each pile should have cards that start with the same letter but each of the piles can be different from each other, such as an a pile, a c pile and so forth. Print a Guide Words Worksheet. If you want to make the worksheet reusable then you can either cover it with contact paper or place it in a page protector and use wipe-off markers.

--Give the piles to your child and ask him to put each pile in alphabetical order. 
--Tell him to lay each pile on a square on the worksheet. 
--Starting with the first pile ask him what the first card is. He should tell you. 
--Instruct him to write the word on the upper left blank on the worksheet. 
--Tell him that the word is the first guide word for that pile of cards. 
--Ask him what the last card in the stack is. He tells you.
--Instruct him to write the word in the other blank on the right.
--Tell him that this is the other guide word for that stack of cards.

Do this with each stack. 
--Things to mention... The words in the piles of cards are in alphabetical order between the guide words. Guide words helps us to find words quickly in a dictionary or other reference books.

At some point you must make this exercise more complicated. Use the J-K, and C, and D words to make some piles that begin with one letter and end with a different letter. The guide words for those will not start with the same letter.

Once you have taught your child about guide words and he understands what their function is then you should start using the dictionary for guide words practice. i.e. Looking up words by using the guide words... Applying this skill to other reference works such as an encyclopedia.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary