Customer Reviews

Scholastic Children's Dictionary

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

As a teacher, I send my students to the dictionary daily to find definitions, word origins, diagrams, etc. Without fail, the Scholastic Children's Dictionary is the one that always provides the clearest information, and the most easily understood definitions for my fourth graders. If you're buying a dictionary for your child, this one's the best for grades 2 through 6!

This large and handsome dictionary is designed for children aged 8 to 12. Along with the definitions are a number of excellent, highly colored pictures. The appendices of the book include the Braille alphabet, the American sign language, a map of the world, a list of flags and facts of the countries of the world, a map of the United States, a list of facts about the fifty American states, and a list of the Presidents of the United States. There is a lot of information in this book.

We bought this book for our children sight unseen for Christmas, 1999. During the following year, if I had reviewed this book, I would have given it five stars. However, since then things have changed. My daughter is now 9, and is in the fourth grade. When in the course of her homework, we have twice found the need to look up words that turned out to not be in this book, the two words are "phylum" and "covey."

I am rather disappointed that this dictionary is not sufficient for a 9 year-old's purposes, but I do not want to make too much of that. Overall this is a very good book, and a worthwhile addition to your library.

When my third grade daughter started to have a daily word to look up as part of her homework, we quickly discovered that the various adult dictionaries we had at home were not suitable. The print was too small and the definitions often had other words she did not know. We also had a "children's dictionary", but it did not have any of the words that she was assigned.

Since she uses the Scholastic Children's Dictionary in her classroom, I suspected that any words she brought home would be in it, since I assume that the teacher checks that dictionary before assigning them. So the fact the ten words I checked were in this dictionary, but not in some other children's dictionaries in the stores, does not necessarily mean that this one is more complete.

But I do like the layout and typefaces used. My daughter, who is slightly dyslexic, can find words reasonably easily. One flaw is that it lacks a page to indicate how far down the edge to look for the "thumb index tab" markings for a given letter. The book suggests looking for the "ninth red tab" for the letter "l", but I don't find that a practical way to find a section. A useful addition would be cutouts on the edge for these letters (seen on some adult dictionaries) even though that would certainly increase the price.

The sample sentences for each word help give an idea of word usage. And warnings about homonyms are also helpful. The definitions are simple enough for an 8 year old which is perfect for our current needs, but I'll want to buy a more advanced dictionary for my daughter in a couple of years.

I bought this dictionary for my daughter to use for her homework, and she likes it so well she sometimes just sits and reads it for fun! Well illustrated, good choice of words presented, if you only pick one dictionary for your child, this is the one to pick.

I'm a second grade teacher. My students sometimes rather read this dictionary than the other books that I have in my classroom library. It's very colorful and simple to use. A must have for any classroom and/or grade school student.

I bought one copy of this dictionary, mostly for its pictures. I plan to buy about 30 more copies. I plan to use them for 5th graders whose primary language is not English I found that the pictures were heavily weighted in animals, which is okay for my purposes. There are special "boxes" for prefixes and suffixes, which will also be useful for us. The word histories are interesting as well. In addition, certain words are listed throughout the book in those special "boxes" and they are entitled, "synonyms." Then, 4-7 synonyms are given for that word. This may come in handy, as synonyms are an area of study that these students currently need to review. What I think is missing from this dictionary is any type of grammatical hints, lessons, or instruction in the book's index. I feel some type of text on grammar should be added because it is a children's dictionary.

I consider dictionaries and knowledge of how to properly use a dictionary, to be absolutely vital in anybody's education.

This is a very good choice for a child, or even for adults who are not accustomed to using dictionaries a lot. I like this one, because, unlike most children's dictionaries, most words a child will need to look up will be in there, and because most of the definitions are adequate. (Children's dictionaries are usually notoriously incomplete!)

My kids have a couple of dictionaries available when they study - if the word they need to get defined is not in this one (or if the needed definition is not included), they'll look it up in a high school or college dictionary. Fortunately, this doesn't happen very often!

I do recommend that every child have a copy of THIS particular dictionary, as it's the best one I've come across for younger kids. Also, I recommend Hubbard's "How to Use a Dictionary" book/course, so every student can really use dictionaries with success.

Happy studying!