Scholastic Children's Dictionary [Library Binding]

Not Stated (Author)

Book Description

A visually appealing, multicultural, nonsexist resource for young students provides more than thirty thousand entires; clear, vocabulary-building labels; an accessible pronunciation guide; sample sentences; a complete Braille and American Sign Language alphabet, and more.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Scholastic Children's Dictionary provides a brief history of each letter, precise definitions, and charming illustrations. Scattered throughout are colored boxes of synonyms, suffixes, and prefixes for featured words. Perusing this quality reference volume is a rich experience that's well beyond a simple list of definitions.

From Booklist

This brand-new dictionary for children ages 8^-11 contains more than 30,000 entries and more than 1,000 detailed photographs and drawings, an average amount compared with other titles aimed at this audience. Although based on a British dictionary, it has been Americanized with entries such as National Guard and taco; no traces of its British origin remain. The prefatory material includes pages on pronunciation and initials, acronyms, and abbreviations. Each word entry includes pronunciation (using simple respelling, without any special symbols such as the schwa), part of speech, syllable breaks, and one or more numbered definitions. Some entries have sample sentences written in simple language for the intended audience. A few, such as the one for ain't, have the usage note "informal." Cross-references to related entries or to pictures are included where appropriate. The pronunciation table is not repeated on every spread in the dictionary, but this is not necessary since no symbols are used. There are no geographic or biographical entries.

Many variations of definitions of entry words are provided (e.g., run has 19 definitions). Current words, such as binary, cyberspace, disk, disc, and modem, are defined. Throughout the dictionary, word history, prefix, suffix, synonym, and language-note boxes appear with tinted backgrounds. Many of the 1,000 pictures are drawings, some of them quite elaborate, such as the pictures for ship and space shuttle. Extensive labeling of the illustrations can be found throughout the volume. Some of the words in the illustration labels are not defined in the dictionary. The reference section provides the Braille Alphabet, American Sign Language chart, maps of the world and the U.S., flags of the countries of the world with population and other data, facts about the 50 states, a list of U.S. presidents with brief biographical information, and an index of picture labels. This section lacks some reference charts, such as weights and measures and time zones, that are usually found in dictionaries for comparable ages.

The physical format of the pages is appealing to the elementary user, and the type size is readable. The Scholastic Children's Dictionary will be a good choice for elementary-school and public libraries. Libraries will also want dictionaries that use traditional pronunciation guides based on the International Phonetic Alphabet, such as the Macmillan Dictionary for Children, American Heritage Children's Dictionary, Webster's Children's Dictionary, Webster's New World Children's Dictionary, or Thorndike-Barnhart Children's Dictionary, since that is what most adult dictionaries use.

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Product Details

• Library Binding: 648 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic Trade (August 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0590252712
• ISBN-13: 978-0590252713
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #125,182 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #44 in Books > Children's Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

606 of 617 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars There are much better choices., May 14, 2002

By 

Shannon Bradford (Ukiah, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Scholastic Children's Dictionary (Library Binding)

As a 5th grade teacher I was forced to buy the Scholastic Children's Dictionary last year because I didn't have much money to spend and it was affordable. After having spent a frustrating year trying to get some use out of this dictionary, I'm now purchasing another dictionary. Why? First, I was lucky enough to have more money available. As many teachers can attest, this is a rare occurrence. Second, the Scholastic Children's Dictionary just doesn't have enough words in it to be useful to my students. Time and time again, words that my students needed to look up just weren't in this dictionary. It's attractive enough; it has plenty of pictures; it includes a few word histories (I'd like more); and it has most of the other things you'd expect in a dictionary. The problem is that it doesn't include enough words for children at my grade level. I think it would be an adequate dictionary for 3rd grade students, but I wouldn't suggest it above that grade level.

Not wanting to make another mistake, I spent a considerable amount of time researching which dictionary to buy. I looked at over 20 dictionaries, including Merriam-Webster Children's Dictionary, MacMillan Dictionary for Students, American Heritage Student Dictionary, and several others. I finally settled on Thorndyke & Barnhart's Junior Dictionary. I also liked their intermediate dictionary, but it cost considerably more and it didn't include much additional information.

What I liked best about the Thorndyke & Barnhart's Junior Dictionary was that it includes many more words than the Scholastic Children's Dictionary (almost double). I typed up a list of over 200 words I couldn't find in the Scholastic Children's Dictionary and used this list when comparing the other dictionaries. Not only did the Thorndyke & Barnhart's Junior Dictionary have more of the words than any of the other dictionaries I looked at, its definitions were more appropriate, I thought, for 5th grade students than the others. The other dictionaries either dumbed-down the definitions to the point of loosing meaning or left some definitions so complex that students of this age group couldn't understand them. The Thorndyke & Barnhart's Junior Dictionary had the best balance. The choice was a surprisingly simple after I started really looking at the dictionaries and comparing them.

98 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars lots of words, easy to understand definitions, May 31, 2000

By 

Jane James "homeschoolmum" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scholastic Children's Dictionary (Library Binding)

What I love most about this dictionary is that it has a lot of words, and adequate definitions for them -- but the definitions are not complicated themselves. Most of the words the kids need to look up are in there, and they don't get confused on the definitions, either.

My kids use this one all the time -- we've bought 5 copies to date, and since I have 6 children, we will undoubtedly get more as time goes on.

My friend, who is the head teacher of a K-12 school, has several copies of this dictionary in each classroom, and prefers it to any other simple dictionary.

This is really an excellent choice for children.

63 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For children under 9, February 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Scholastic Children's Dictionary (Library Binding)

This dictionary worked well up through the third grade. Now that my children are in the fourth and fifth grades they have many words to look up from their vocabulary assignments that are not in this book. I think the best age for this book should be five to eight. For that age range it's a 5 star book.