D is for Dictionary… Which is what I consulted in order to figure out what to write for this post.
The last 2 weeks (I missed week one), I have been linking up with Blogging Through the Alphabet, hosted by Marcy at Ben and Me, and this week is supposed to be “D” week. This means the bloggers that are participating have to write a blog post geared toward the letter “d”. There are no real ‘rules’ as to how you incorporate the letter into your blog post, but I really prefer the title of my post to begin with that letter, cause it just doesn’t make sense to me any other way.
Annnnnyway… I was drawing a blank as to what to write about!
To remedy my blank mind, I got my trusty dictionary out…
I literally just started looking through the D’s to see if it would light a spark… and it worked! I decided I needed to write about the dictionary itself. Give it some props.
You see, when my 12 year old daughter brought me the dictionary (because what good mom would get up and get it herself?), she questioned why I even needed it because I had my computer on my lap with a built-in dictionary (the internet).
She gets quite frustrated with me in her schooling when I make her look up words in the paper dictionary instead of the online one.
Do any of you parents have that problem, too? Better yet, do you even care which type of dictionary your child uses?
Now, I know that any way that a child looks up a word and gains knowledge about it’s meaning and application is great… BUT I think also think there are other, less obvious, lessons to be learned in the process.
The process…
The act of looking up a word in the dictionary takes a certain amount of knowledge. Yes, basically it’s just knowing the alphabet, but it goes deeper than that. You need patience. Patience to find the correct page and the word on that page.
With everything at our fingertips with all of our electronic gadgets, sometimes it’s a good thing to have to wait on something. It’s good for something to take some time.
Also, when you look up a word on a computer (or on a handheld device), you can click on a nice little speaker looking icon and a sweet little computer voice will say the word for you. That’s super convenient, but it is a useful thing to be able to read a word using the pronunciation key.
The other thing is this… kids already KNOW how to use their iPods, iPods, kindles, and computers. They may not know how to use a dictionary. With our world being so technologically based, we need to remember to teach our kids the “old fashioned” way of doing things.
Call me crazy, but I feel like it’s great when kids do things that have nothing to do with today’s technology. I think they should sit in a hammock and read a book (something that my daughter loves to do, thankfully.). I think kids should listen to stories on the radio. I think they should be put outside and made to just come up with something to do. Back in the day, they called it “using your imagination”. Maybe some of you have heard of it?
Looking up a word in the dictionary and trying to figure out how to pronounce it using the pronunciation key, finding out if it is a verb, noun, adjective or if it can be used as more than one part of speech, seeing sample sentences in which it can be used, and the different versions of the word (conjugations, for you dictionary lovers)… These are all things our children should be able to do and why a dictionary is wonderful.
Okay… now, for fun, go grab your dictionary and open it up to a random page and learn a new word!
What was your word? Tell me your word in the comments or just share with me your love (or hate) with the dictionary.
Check out other “D” posts at Ben and Me!
Leave a Reply