Junior Dictionary [antikvár]

TO THE TEACHER AND PARENT The ideal dictionary for a young learner is a book that will help him learn the meaning of any word that he needs to understand, the spelling of any word that he needs to write, and the pronunciation of any word that he needs to speak. It will give him the help that he needs when he needs it, with a minimum of eyestrain and fatigue. For every minute that he spends, it will give him a maximum of knowledge and skill and power for reading, writing, and speaking. It will fit him in due time to make proper use of a dictionary for adults. To make a dictionary that comes near to this ideal requires not only adequate knowledge of the English language, but also expert scientific knowledge of children's minds, and of their needs in reading, hearing, and using words. The presentation of every detail about every word requires ingenuity and thoughtfulness. THE SELECTION OF WORDS AND MEANINGS The selection of words is based on counts of the actual occurrences of words in reading matter. These counts enable us to measure the frequency and range of occurrence of each word. The count used in the first edition of the Junior Dictionary was the Thorndike count of ten million words. This was later supplemented by a Thorndike count of occurrences of all words (save 2,500 of the commonest) in each of 120 books from the Terman and Lima list of juvenile books, using only the first 40,000 words in the case of books more than 40,000 words long. Dr. Irving Lorge has made a count of over 4V2 million words in current magazines. In addition to this, Dr. Lorge and Dr. Thorndike made a semantic count of nearly five million words in representative reading. This semantic count, giving the frequency of each meaning of a word, has been of great value in selecting the meanings to be defined. The important data on the frequency and range of words in all of these counts have been gathered together in the Thorndike-Lorge Teacher's Word Book of 30,000 Words. As a guide, there is thus available now a total count of about thirty million instead of ten million. Various smaller counts made by others have also been studied. These counts have enabled us to concentrate our efforts on those particular meanings of each word that will probably be found in a child's reading matter. TEACHING THE MEANING OF WORDS It is not enough to abbreviate and adapt definitions made originally for adults, and especially for adults of much ability and knowledge. Definitions are not like clothes that can be cut down and made to fit. What has a clear and correct meaning to a well-informed adult may confuse and mislead a child. We have therefore sought to frame definitions directly to meet the needs of children. We make great use of illustrative sentences containing the word being defined and of pictures when pictures can teach the child what he needs to know better than words can. The illustrative sentences and pictures are chosen or made with the same unfailing consideration of the young learner's needs.