Learn
more on the Web about the life of Noah Webster, father of the dictionary
(born October 16, 1758).
Included -- Dictionary games! Cross-curriculum activities!
Skills pages for use across the grades!
Noah Webster was born on October 16, 1758, in
the West Division of Hartford (Connecticut). Noah's was an average
colonial family. His father farmed and worked as a weaver. His mother
worked at home. Noah and his two brothers, Charles and Abraham,
helped their father with the farm work. Noah's sisters, Mercy and
Jerusha, worked with their mother to keep house and to make food
and clothing for the family.
So began the life of Noah Webster, the man often called
"the father of the American dictionary."
Webster began writing his dictionary at the age of
43. It took him more than 27 years to write it. In this first "American"
dictionary, Webster introduced distinctively American words such as
"skunk" and "hickory" and "chowder." In addition, he introduced American
spellings such as "color" and "music," derivations of the English
spellings "colour" and "musick."
But not all Webster spellings from that first dictionary
stuck! For example, "tung" (tongue) and "wimmen" (women) aren't
used today -- even if they are more true to their pronunciation.
The facts above are available in brief bios of Noah Webster
that you can explore online on your own. Check out A
Short Summary of Noah Webster's Life on the site connected to the
Noah Webster House Museum in West Hartford, Connecticut, and Noah Webster and America's First Dictionary on the Merriam-Webster Online site.
You'll find some historical information about Noah
Webster's "Blue-Backed" Speller, the best-seller he wrote before his
dictionary, on the Blackwell History of Education Research Museum site.
Want to build your students' vocabularies?
Fake Out!
is the game for you! A different game is available online each week at
this site from the folks at Houghton-Mifflin. Fake Out! offers
five words at three different levels of play: Grades K-2, Grades 3-5,
and Grades 6 and above. Most of the words are sure to stump! But that's
half the fun. Click on each word and guess which meaning is the correct
one. Submit your guesses and get immediate feedback about your answers!
Get the correct definition too (assuming you were wrong, that is). You
can also click on "View Counts" and see how many people have guessed each
definition.
This might make a fun "dictionary learning center" for
your students each week; they could follow-up by writing the correct
definition as found in a classroom dictionary.
And if nurturing spelling champions is your goal, check
out the official site of Scripps-Howard's National
Spelling Bee. The site includes guidelines for participation, study
activities and tips, and rules.
Ever come across a word the meaning of which has you stumped?
The definition is just a URL and a mouse click away on the WWWebster
Dictionary. Just type in the word -- spelling counts! -- an
up pops the definition.
For a wide range of resources, go to dictionary.com
The site includes a Hypertext Webster Interface (just enter the word directly
on the dictionary.com screen and get the simple definition) and links
to many other sites, including:
- Bartlett's Quotations -- a collection of passages, phrases,
and proverbs traced to their sources in ancient and modern literature.
- Common Errors in English -- simple, entertaining explanations
of common errors in English.
- The New Hacker's Dictionary -- hacker slang and jargon.
- Roget's Thesaurus -- a catalog of English words and phrases
that can be accessed by keyword searching.
- whatis.com -- a cross-referenced glossary of Internet terms
designed for fast lookup, organized alphabetically and by topic.
Looking for other reference material? The apt-named Reference
Material site includes links to dictionaries of all sorts. Yes, a
link to Webster's is here. You'll also find links to an acronym dictionary
and a biographical dictionary as well as to resources that will help in
finding telephone area codes, Post Office zip codes, and more.
Finally, if you're looking for a couple activities
to teach or reinforce basic dictionary skills, check out two skills
pages we've created just for you. Just click below on the page(s)
you want to view, print it out, and duplicate it for use tomorrow
in your classroom!
Article by Gary Hopkins
Education World® Editor-in-Chief
Copyright © 2005 Education World
Originally published 10/13/1997
Links last updated 09/27/2005
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