Standard 4: Vocabulary

Students will expand their working vocabularies to effectively communicate and understand texts.

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students locate words in a dictionary, glossary, or thesaurus  (printed and/or electronic) and use for meaning, syllabication, pronunciation, synonyms, and parts of speech.
• Students understand that words are in ‘abc’ order.
• Students understand that guide words (first and last words on the page) are used to locate words. 

• Teachers explain that the use of a dictionary, glossary, or thesaurus necessitates the use of alphabetical order and guide words.
• Teachers explain that dictionaries and glossaries (print and electronic) include information about word meaning, syllabication, and pronunciation. As well as explaining that thesauruses identify synonyms and antonyms of various words.
• Teachers model using a dictionary or glossary to determine the meaning, syllabication, and pronunciation of words.
• Teachers provide opportunities for students to practice using a dictionary or glossary to determine the meaning, syllabication, and pronunciation of words.
• Teachers provide opportunities for students to practice using a thesaurus to identify synonyms and antonyms of various words.
• Teachers monitor and provide opportunities for students to receive feedback when using print or digital resources to determine the meanings, syllabication, pronunciation, synonyms, and parts of speech of words.

Supporting Resources 

Teacher Insights 

In Other Words: Using a Thesaurus (website) 

Using a Dictionary and Thesaurus To Teach Synonyms, Antonyms, and Context Clues (website)

Describing a Person: Thesaurus Game (website)

Word Reference Materials Lesson (website)

Shades of Meaning (website)

VisuWords Online Visual Dictionary and Thesaurus (webiste)

My World of Words (website)

• The intent of this standard is to:

• Focus on finding words in a dictionary (printed and/or electronic), and using it to clarify the meaning of those words.

• Focus on the phonetic spelling next to the word in the dictionary to clarify pronunciation.

• Understandings/skills that are necessary to use a dictionary include:

• Understanding that words are in alphabetical order.

• Understanding that guide words are at the top of the page of a dictionary.  

• Understanding that the guide word on the left represents the first dictionary word on the page, and the guide word on the right represents the last dictionary word on the page.

• The intent of this standard is that students’ usage with resources/reference materials becomes increasingly more complex (to determine meaning).

Due to recursive nature of the standards, it is essential that teachers are aware of how all objectives within and between strands work together for optimal instruction.