Scholastic Children's Dictionary (Library Binding)

~ Scholastic Books (Author)

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 Publishers Weekly

Newly updated and attractively organized with easy-to-read pronunciation guides, sample sentences and plenty of pictures, the paper-over-board Scholastic Children's Dictionary remains a kid-friendly resource. Back matter contains a U.S. and world map, the Braille and American Sign Language alphabets, flags and basic facts about the world's countries and information about the American presidents. Ages 8-up.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Library Binding: 648 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic (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: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #234,007 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

473 of 480 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 (REAL NAME)

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.

89 of 91 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

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.

52 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

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

By A Customer

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.