That's a crucial skill. It will prepare them to later learn how to use log tables and slide rules.

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"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

It teaches a process and concept that is easily understood using a dictionary but could have use in other more complex areas.

... like using an index, which is useful.

A test on the vocab seems kind of silly. It seems like a better test would be to pick a couple words kids that age are extraordinarily unlikely to know, ask them to look it up, and see if they can do it.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

The internet was just arriving when I was in elementary school. I remember our 7th grade teacher had daily dictionary drills. He would say a word and time us on how quickly we could look it up, then find synonyms, etc. He said those were THE most crucial skills we would need in the job market. When we were done that, we would go to computer class. If only he knew what was just a few years down the road....

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Long Chile was a silly place.

Sort of on topic - heard on the news today that a recent poll says that 26% of the population would rather stay at home and read the dictionary all day than go to a dental appointment.

Understandable - we use our glossary a lot too look up vocabulary words. It's the focus on the terminology on the test that is irritating me. The questions are worded so that they have to really understand guidewords vs entry word not just where would you find a word in the dictionary. I've got a card game created with sample questions but as I was making it I just got to thinking who even uses these terms even if they do use a dictionary?!

dunno. I need a dictionary to look up "guideword". I'm going to guess it's the word in the top corner...

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Just asked my wife. She's a veteran grade 2/3 teacher. She's thinks you're clueless (her words not mine) and gave me a hundred solid reasons why this is still important relevant skills in today's look it up online on the computer world. .

I’m curious as well. I don’t need 100 solid reasons, but I’d love to hear the top ten.

Alexa/google. It's 2019, you have to take advantage of the technology or become a luddite.

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

I understand in the context of the classroom the validity of dictionary skills and my responsibility as a teacher to introduce these skills. It's difficult to accurately express my intent on social media which is reminding me of why I hardly ever post anything anywhere anymore.

I have a class of children who came to me from first grade already having test anxiety at the age of seven. I'm looking at these test questions, considering the temperament and attention span of my students along with the lack of accurate practice provided in my curriculum materials. While I'm sitting here at home trying to design an interactive dictionary question/card game the thought crossed my mind do these students even have a dictionary at home? And in that context of the skills and terminology the children use at home in their daily life are these test questions about the specifics of dictionary terminology relevant is all I was pondering. I'll spend a lot of class time making sure the children understand these terms and can READ these terms which will be on the test when it seems to me a more accurate lesson in our current technological age would be to allow the children to spend time finding the meaning of words through various methods - paper or technology based. Actually, now that I think about it, that's what I'm going to do.

Just seems like our curriculum might be getting outdated if there is no instruction on using technology to find the meaning of words. There are online dictionaries and paper dictionaries.

Almost no one has a dictionary at home.

Easier to use Google. :)

I'm curious if I ever knew those terms. I could get it now based on the context, but not sure we ever learned them in olden times either.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

If only knowledge of guide words was the real issue.

I tell my kids that either they know what a word means or they don't. When they don't know, they need to look it up. Period. I guess I don't care what medium they utilize in order to look it up. It's always seemed easier to use the internet while on the internet, and use a dictionary in book form while reading a traditional book.

My kids argued back that context clues were really all they needed. Total barf. IMHO, whenever the context clue lesson is given in school it needs to be pointed out how absolutely inferior it is to actually knowing the meaning of a word. Using context clues a nice lesson in teaching where logic and deduction can be applied, but it's seriously detrimental to conclude it's somehow a proper substitute for a dictionary.

Please share five of those reasons.

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Long Chile was a silly place.