hi i'm ashley and today we're going to learn how to find words in a dictionary
are you ready let's go
all the words in a dictionary are listed in alphabetical order
so it's good to be sure that you know abc order first
if you need a refresher you might want to go back to the game alphabetical order words for practice
here i have a list of four words found back to back in a dictionary orbit orca orchard and
orchestra notice how they all have the same first two letters and most have the same first three
letters there are so many words in the english language that you have to pay close attention
sometimes there are five or more letters that are the same at the start of the word and you have to
look all the way to the sixth letter to find the difference now you might be thinking okay i know
alphabetical order but how can i look up just one word when there are so many in that huge book not
to worry there are a few things that the creators of dictionaries have put in them to help you
first on the edges of the pages there are markings to show which letter of the
alphabet you are looking at a words b words c words and so on a lot of times there are even
different colors or indentions on the side of the pages to help you find that first letter
here you can see the dictionary is opened up to d words now let's say you want to look up koala
koala starts with k these letters on the side can help you quickly flip to the section of k words
now even in the k section there are still a lot of words that's where guide words come in handy
on every page of the dictionary there is a word listed on the top left and top right corners of
the pages and these are separate from the main list of words with definitions these guide words
help you to know exactly what you can find on that page the word in the top left will be the first
entry of the page and the word on the top right is the very last entry of the page
so i'm looking up koala i flip to a page in the k section and find the words key and
kind as guide words let's think in alphabetical order would koala come between those two words
no the second letter is o which comes after i the second letter of kind that means i need to
flip to a later page okay i've now flipped to a later page and i see the guide words
klutz and komodo dragon do you think it will be on this page well that second letter o tells us
it will come after klutz what about komodo dragon it has a second letter of o let's look at the
third letter on koala it's a and komodo dragon it's m a comes before m so that means it will be
on this page koala comes between the guide words in alphabetical order now that i've found the page
i just need to use my alphabetical order skills to find the entry on this page
and that's it now it's your turn be sure to practice what you've
learned by looking up words in your own dictionary
don't forget to play our online games and quizzes and remember to always be clever