Teaching Use of a Dictionary Another method for teaching word learning strategies is through the use of dictionaries. Students will need to use dictionaries, print or online, during their schooling and throughout their lives. In most cases, adults use a dictionary after a word is read in context and they are unable to determine the word’s meaning. Since adults have more life experience, they are generally able to use context clues to help them select the correct meaning in the dictionary. Students, however, often have difficulty with this. They tend to select the first definition or the shortest definition. Teachers must show students how to identify and select the most appropriate meaning of the word based on how the word is used in context (Stahl & Kapinus, 2001). Students also need other skills in order to use the dictionary, such as knowing how to alphabetize and knowing how to use the guide words at the top of each page to locate specific words. To help students learn how to select the appropriate meaning in the dictionary, teachers can use the following steps (Graves, 2006). Similar to other strategies in this book, the teacher models this process approach to solving words, and students will internalize it with more practice. 1. Read the sentence containing the unknown word. 2. Before looking in the dictionary, think aloud and guess the meaning of the word based on the clues in and around the word. 3. Explain that many words have several meanings and then read all of the dictionary’s definitions for that word. 4. Decide which definition makes sense within the context of the text being read. 5. If the meaning is still unknown, provide further discussion about the context and look at word parts