Dictionaries are organized alphabetically. Guide words at the top of each page indicate the first and last entry on that page to allow readers to quickly find words. To look up the word "science", one would go to the S section and use the guide words to determine which page contains words between the guide words alphabetically closest to "science".

1. How is a Dictionary Organized?

2. Dictionaries are books that list all the words in a language.

3. To make dictionaries easier to use, the words are organized in alphabetical order . So to use a dictionary easily , you must know how to alphabetize words.

4. Since there are so many words in a dictionary, guide words are used to help you locate a word quickly. What are guide words ?

5. Guide words are found at the top of each page. They tell you the first and last word that is found on that page.

6. How do guide words help you find a word quickly? Instead of looking at each word on a page, which could take forever, you just look at the guide words and then use what you know about alphabetizing words to decide if your word would be found on that page.

7. Let’s see what that means- Let’s pretend we are looking up the word, science . First we would turn to the S section.

8. Then we would use the guide words and what we know about alphabetizing words to decide the correct page in the S section.

9. We would look at the guide words at the top of each page and decide between which ones our word would come in alphabetical order.

10. Let’s do that for the word science - Which one of these pages would contain the word science ?

11. Dictionary Definitions More than one meaning

12. Have you ever looked up the definition for a word in the dictionary? If so, then you might have been confused by some of the parts of that definition.

13. Today, we’re going to learn what each part of a definition means.