Why dictionaries are dead
I might not survive this post with its blasphemous title. Alas.
You learn to use a dictionary since you are very young. It is one of those skills they made you practice over and over and over and over and over. You can definitely find those words in scrabble now.
Not that you have any idea what they mean, nor do you care to. But you feel clever.
You tell your kids, this is a life skill you will need for ever and ever and ever.
But here goes the apotheosis - the digital word processing and related tools.
I am not saying you should not teach your students to look in alphabetical order. Oh no. That would be silly. After all, they need to learn to use the index, the online library catalog, and of course, find their name on an alphabetized roster.
However (my favorite word)
NO ONE USES A DICTIONARY IN THE PRESENT DAY! Well, in the first world countries, which is another battle all together.
You have google - wikipedia - phone apps - web apps - tablets - electronic dictionaries - electronic thesaurus - on and on and on
You now want your students to learn a plethora of words, how to use them, manipulate them. For this, a dictionary is obsolete. As they sit in class writing an essay they will waste a good 15 minutes finding a synonym. Or while reading a common core approved informational text, it will take them another 15 minutes to find that tricky word, and another 15 to understand what the heck the definition means, and then which one to choose. Sure, they have the skill, but they just forgot what they were reading or writing to begin with.
Other side of the same story.
As they sit in class writing an essay they will spend 3 minutes finding a synonym in a digital thesaurus and enriching their work. Or, while reading that common core approved informational text, they will spend 5 minutes finding the word on their phone, and using the pop-up dictionary or images to support the definition if needed. BAM!
In my classroom I use an electronic thesaurus. It has synonyms as well as antonyms. Besides all of the obvious uses in reading and writing, it allows for more vocabulary enrichment: during class discussions.
(Yes, they learned their content vocabulary with those nifty graphic organizers, and they have learned their academic vocabulary with those clever anchor charts...but)
But people, think outside of your box, and your graphic organizer, and your anchor charts. You are allowed to use even more words. Yes, you are. The students take their gadget and make use of it even when they are not supposed to. And they really should know better than trying to use learning tools outside of learning time. Shame on them.
Wait. They could go get the dictionary instead to find that word that means really really bad while they talk about Mindcraft.