Web-based Dictionary & Thesaurus
Overview
Web-based dictionaries and thesauruses can serve as visual and audio resources for students to expand their Vocabulary knowledge. Along with easy access to definitions, web dictionaries and thesauruses can provide audio pronunciations to foster students' Phonological Processing, in turn helping students understand and remember words more readily.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
At 5:00, watch how this teacher introduces digital dictionaries and takes her class through exercises to understand their features compared to print dictionaries. Tying the elements to concepts in class like parts of speech and sentence creation also supports Foundational Writing Skills.
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Learn how the Merriam-Webster Dictionary app allows learners to conveniently search for and define unfamiliar words. By offering voice search and audio pronunciation functions, this product supports learners who prefer audio over text. The embedded quizzes also allow for continued Vocabulary building and practice.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Multisensory Supports Strategies
Audiobooks allow students to hear fluent reading and to experience books above their reading skills.
Communication boards are displays of graphics (e.g., pictures, symbols, illustrations) and/or words where learners can gesture or point to the displays to extend their expressive language potential.
Dictation, also referred to as speech-to-text, an assistive communication technology that translates voice dictation to digital text, provides students with transcription difficulties the opportunity to participate in the writing process by allowing them to use their voice to generate and record ideas.
Dictionaries and thesauruses can serve as resources for students to expand their Vocabulary knowledge.
Adding gestures and motions to complement learning activates more cognitive processes for recall and understanding.
Full sentence manipulatives allow students to practice producing more complex Syntax and writing.
Providing physical representations of parts of a sentence activates learners' mental processes.
Short breaks that include mindfulness quiet the brain to allow for improved thinking and emotional regulation.
Brain breaks that include movement allow learners to refresh their thinking and focus on learning new information.
We take in information through all our senses.
Connecting information to music and dance can support Short-term and Long-term Memory by engaging auditory processes, Emotions, and physical activity.
Research shows physical activity improves focus and creativity.
Incorporating multiple senses with strategies like chewing gum, using a vibrating pen, and sitting on a ball chair supports focus and Attention.
Using earplugs or headphones can increase focus and comfort.
Providing tools so learners can choose to listen to a text supports individual strengths and needs.
Tossing a ball, beanbag, or other small object activates physical focus in support of mental focus.
Visual supports, like text magnification, colored overlays, and guided reading strips, help students focus and properly track as they read.
Research has shown that students write longer pieces with stronger quality when they use word processing software.
Word sorts are multisensory activities that help learners identify patterns and group words based on different categories.
