Dictionary skills and alphabetical order

[Mom-ninja.]

My 9 yr does NOT get it. How many times do I have to explain to him how to look up a word in the dictionary before he gets it? Here's an example of what he does.

 

He had to find the word "huge" so he goes to the H section. So far okay. He looks for 'u' and finds it. Then while looking for 'g' he ends up going back past the 'hu' guide words. He gets all the way to 'hog' guide words and looks at me totally confused.

 

I've explained many many many many MANY time that he has to pay attention to all the previous letters including the next letter he's looking for.

 

We went to the library the other day and I made him actually look up a book and locate it. He was so lost. He could not figure out how to use the guide words on the aisles and then how to figure out how to locate the book on the shelf. I've explained and shown him how to do so before.

 

When I told him he needed to learn how to find books he said, "Why? All I have to do is request the book online and just walk in and pick it up."

 

<_<

 

Is this just one of those things he has to over practice before he can do it? I don't know how else to explain it.

[Arcadia]

My younger did quite a few alphabetical order worksheets before he catch on to using that skill for dictionary and library.

Below links are an example of the kind of alphabetical order worksheets both my boys had to do in K and 1st in public school.

http://www.studenthandouts.com/01-Web-Pages/001-Pages/abc-order-worksheet-alphabetize-names-alabama-cities-towns.htm

http://www.schoolexpress.com/fws/ws/languagearts/alphabetizing/alpha14.gif

[unfrumpable.]

I've gone over alphabetical order with my son before and he's done a small amount of dictionary work. Today one of our lessons was dictionary skills. He had six words to look up. He was acting like it was killing him. He is the drama queen. I won't mention how long that took, but it was a while!

 

Like your son, he would find the first and second letters, then get discouraged, start flipping through pages w/o really looking, flop to the side and give up. Oy!

 

I have no advice, just wanted to commiserate.

[Tita Gidge]

This thread comforts me.

 

I thought it was just my kid, and I was going nuts because he's in double digits and should've totally nailed this by now.

 

I no longer allow him to place a book on hold unless it's already checked out (to someone else); everything else he has to search and find the old-fashioned way. This works for school books because I tell him to find a specific title or to seek out a specific topic. It doesn't work for personally-selected books and topics he can locate in the stacks by memory.

 

About once a week we do a quick review. I have him pick a letter of the alphabet, then I let another kid pick ten words from that letter in the dictionary. Then when he's waiting for lunch, he alphabetizes them. WIth much fanfare and ado, wondering loudly why he must do this ... the smell of lunch usually keeps this to a minimum. Usually.

[Terabith]

Am I the only one who thinks that I might as well just teach them to use an online dictionary? I mean, I know alphabetical skills are important, but I have a hard time getting myself to *care* all that much about putting in the time (which seems to be fairly immense) to really learn them. I can't personally remember the last time I used a physical dictionary.

 

We were doing a test prep book with questions about phone books and almanacs. That was an interesting conversation!

[unfrumpable.]

Alphabetical skills are useful in other areas besides dictionaries. Libraries and bookstores usually put things in alphabetical order. Indexes in the back of books are in alphabetical order, as well as glossaries and whatever other appendixes they want to shove back there. :) I would imagine there are other examples that I'm just not thinking of now.

 

I feel it's pretty important to know how to how to alphabetize in general.

[Ellie]

Yes, he has to do it over and over and over. In fact, if he were mine, he'd be alphabetizing every.single.thing for the next six months, lol.

 

AlphaBetter is good (the site doesn't work well with Internet Explorer).

[Ellie]

Am I the only one who thinks that I might as well just teach them to use an online dictionary? I mean, I know alphabetical skills are important, but I have a hard time getting myself to *care* all that much about putting in the time (which seems to be fairly immense) to really learn them. I can't personally remember the last time I used a physical dictionary.

 

I haven't used a dictionary in forever, either, but I have to know how things are alphabetized all the time. IMHO, it's important enough to take the time to teach it in the first place, and then to make it a point to use it as often as possible.

[JNW]

I was working at a job recently where *filing* was a crucial skill to have. (Front desk at a fitness center.) Let me assure you of the importance of having this skill. I cannot begin to describe to you the massive amount of frustration I endured every time I looked for paperwork that was misfiled by my coworkers because they simply had no idea how to alphabetize. My boss wrote out the entire alphabet and taped it to the counter, and it did not help these poor, ignorant people. Please don't let your children turn out this way. You never know what kind of part time jobs they may have on the way to doing something else.

[Mom-ninja.]

I no longer allow him to place a book on hold unless it's already checked out (to someone else); everything else he has to search and find the old-fashioned way. This works for school books because I tell him to find a specific title or to seek out a specific topic. It doesn't work for personally-selected books and topics he can locate in the stacks by memory.

 

 

 

 

I'm going to do this as much as possible. A lot of books we want are not at our physical branch and we have to request them. However, from now on I will be checking every book to see if it is in our branch. I may even drive to other libraries if I have to.

 

Making a list of words is a great idea. In fact my 12 yr old would benefit from it as well.

 

 

Hum, I wonder if it would be mean of me to have him put the books on his bookshelf in his room in alphabetical order. It would be a big job once but pretty simple to keep up

[JNW]

I'm going to do this as much as possible. A lot of books we want are not at our physical branch and we have to request them. However, from now on I will be checking every book to see if it is in our branch. I may even drive to other libraries if I have to.

 

Making a list of words is a great idea. In fact my 12 yr old would benefit from it as well.

 

 

Hum, I wonder if it would be mean of me to have him put the books on his bookshelf in his room in alphabetical order. It would be a big job once but pretty simple to keep up

 

 

I like the idea of him managing his own personal books. Sounds reasonable and it would definitely help him.

[Tita Gidge]

I'm going to do this as much as possible. A lot of books we want are not at our physical branch and we have to request them. However, from now on I will be checking every book to see if it is in our branch. I may even drive to other libraries if I have to.

 

Making a list of words is a great idea. In fact my 12 yr old would benefit from it as well.

 

 

Hum, I wonder if it would be mean of me to have him put the books on his bookshelf in his room in alphabetical order. It would be a big job once but pretty simple to keep up

 

 

Ok, this is where I confess I'm talking about my 12 year old LOL.

 

We live in a semi-rural town and our library is less than 5 years old. We're like you, where lots of things have to be loaned from other libraries (or we drive to the neighboring city's library). But I figure it's win-win if I give him a random subject or book to fetch for me because he works on his skills and even if we never read the book ... well, the library gets credit for a book checked out!

 

I like the idea of organizing his bookshelf :) I may see if my daughter will go for that assignment, too!

[ElizabethB]

My phonics lesson 30 teaches the skill by changing letters to numbers.

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/Phonics%20Lsns/phonicslsnslinks.html

 

Here are the charts that go along with the lessons:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/Phonics%20Lsns/Resources/AlphabetFiles.pdf

[Arcadia]

Spam by maysnx reported. Exact sentences from #3

[Jyniffrec]

I knew we had a problem when I told my son to alphabetize a list of words and I got something like this:

 

My list:

Dog

Flatten

Fake

Story

Bean

 

He handed the sheet back like this:

Dgo

Aefntt

Aefk

Orsty

Aben

 

I'm so glad that I thought to see if his school had taught him this information! :)

 

[Mom-ninja.]

That is funny! But, hey, the letters are in the correct order!

[Jyniffrec]

That is funny! But, hey, the letters are in the correct order!

 

 

Yeah, I had to shift my thinking a bit. It was one of those moments when I could I appreciate original thinking once I wrapped my head around what he had done!

[Farrar]

I've been trying to contextualize skills for today lately. Basically, I'm trying to recognize that these things are still necessary but that "kids today" learn other necessary skills early and I shouldn't feel bad if they learn some of the more old-fashioned ones later on than kids a generation ago. So this applies to alphabetizing, tying shoes, and a number of other things I could do easily at my kids' age, but with which my kids still struggle.

[boscopup]

Have you practiced putting words on paper in alphabetical order first? I'd do that for a while before moving to the dictionary.

 

My oldest can do alphabetical order, but his spelling has a short practice every week. It started out alphabetized words with different starting letters. Then it gradually moved to comparing the second or third letter.

 

He can also tie his shoes, but not until this year - 3rd grade. I can't count the number of people that said to me, "When I was in school, we couldn't graduate kindergarten until we could tie our shoes!" Even my DH made that comment. But DS did finally get it. I then told him, " Congratulations! You've graduated kindergarten!" :D

[ItoLina]

This is off the origional topic, but I am glad to hear that other people's kids can't tie their shoes yet. My pediatrician has been asking me if Ds can do this yet since his 4 year check up and a almost 6 years old he is not even close...grant it we live In a place where no one usually even owns shoes with ties, but I was still feeling bad. I am going to set myself a new bar...by third grade ds will be able to tie his own soccer cleats (the only pair of shoes with laces he has) :-)

 

ETA: DS cannot alphabetized well yet either, but we are working on it and I think it is a worthwhile skill. I wouldn't stress about it though, I think it's one of those things that if you just make a point to do it once in a while it will eventually come.

[weederberries]

Am I the only one who thinks that I might as well just teach them to use an online dictionary? I mean, I know alphabetical skills are important, but I have a hard time getting myself to *care* all that much about putting in the time (which seems to be fairly immense) to really learn them. I can't personally remember the last time I used a physical dictionary.

 

We were doing a test prep book with questions about phone books and almanacs. That was an interesting conversation!

 

 

I had to borrow a physical dictionary to do the dictionary skill lessons in FLL. :/ My kids caught on and then we repeated the lessons with an online dictionary, which is the only thing I ever use.

 

phone books? no way.

[weederberries]

To the OP,

 

I'd suggest having him place his finger on the first hu word. Then have him move to the next letter. If that's a struggle or involves a page change, offer those tiny little post-it flags and mark the place on the page where the second letter changes.

 

Other people have had good suggestions as well.

[unfrumpable.]

My son is 7 and I haven't even taught him tying yet. He has worn Crocs since he needed to wear shoes, no tying involved! My dh keeps asking when I'm going to teach him, I just never think about it. I always wear Croc sandals, so no tying there either! One of these days.....

[boscopup]

On the shoe tying, my son learned when I got him tie shoes. He had to practice every time he put shoes on. Just make sure you give yourself extra time when getting ready to go somewhere. ;)