Alphabets, Spelling, Keyboarding, and More
Spelling
Go to Texting and Social Media on this site for more resources on spelling and language,
Picture Books about Spelling
Gabby. Joyce Grant. Illustrated by Jan Dolby. Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2012
Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster. Joyce Frasier. HMH Books for Young Readers, 2007
Piper Periwinkle: Spelling Bee Queen. Susanne &. Annaliese Blumer. Illustrated by Joshua Wichterich. Chickadilly Press, 2016
Yoko Writes Her Name. Rosemary Wells. Hyperion, 2008. [On the first day of school, Yoko writes her name in Japanese, not English, but meets a friend who will teach her English so she can learn Japanese]
An Inconvenient Alphabet: Ben Franklin & Noah Webster's Spelling Revolution. Beth Anderson. Illustrated by Elizabeth Baddeley. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2018
Spelling Bees
Spelling Bee Interactive from Annenberg Learner - 8 levels from Grade 1 to Grades 11-12 - Children hear stories or sentences read aloud with words missing that they must spell correctly
Dictionaries and Thesaurus
Books and Digital Resources
Historical Perspectives: Noah Webster and Joseph Emerson Worcester
The Dictionary Wars: The American Fight Over the English Language. Peter Martin. Princeton University Press, 2019.
Two lexicographers, Noah Webster and Joseph Emerson Worcester, developed competing dictionaries for the new American language in the decades before the Civil War.
George and Charles Merriam published Webster's version, but after Webster's death in 1843, adding more and more of Worcester's definition to the dictionary, essentially taking Webster out of Webster."
Documents That Changed the World: Noah's Webster's Dictionary, 1828
Noah Webster and His Words. Jeri Chase Feris. Illustrated by Vincent X. Kirsch. HMH Books for Young Readers, 2015
The American Spelling Book, Noah Webster (first published in 1783)
Roget's Theasurus
The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus. Jen Bryant. Illustrated by Melissa Sweet. Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2014.
Picture Books
The Great Dictionary Caper. Judy Sierra. Illustrated by Eric Comstock. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2018.
The Lost Words. Robert MacFarlane. Illustrated by Jackie Morris (Anansi International, 2018)
Adding New Words to the Dictionary
New Words are being added to the dictionary all the time, recently for example:
Postmealing: Spending time with friends and families after a meal
Glamping: Luxury-style camping
Tomoz: Tomorrow
I would like to see a particular word added to or deleted from the dictionary. What can I do?
English By the Book (National Geographic, 2013)
Loanwords
Loanwords are words from one language that are incorporated into another language without translation.
Which Words Did English Take from Other Languages?
80 percent of the English language is loanwords: Cul-dec-sac (French); Chowder (French); Prairie (French for meadow) Mosquito (Spanish); Canyon (Spanish); Avatar (Sanskrit); Tsunami (Japanese); Tattoo (Polynesian); Lemon (Arabic); Sherbert (Turkish); Fest (German for celebration); Intelligentsia (Russian)
Online Tools for Interactive Vocabulary Learning
Handheld Dictionary and Thesaurus from Franklin Electronics (many different models available)
Younger Students
Older Students
Thesaurus and Grammar Checkers
Word Hippo - Comprehensive Thesaurus for Synonyms and Antonyms
Reverso Speller - Spell checker, grammar checker, and translators
Math and Science
A Maths Dictionary for Kids by Jenny Eather
Sid the Science Kid Glossary of Science Words from PBS Kids
More "Learning Conventions" pages: Alphabets | Handwriting and Keyboarding | Punctuation | Parts of Speech