Years 5 and 6 English · Key Stage 2 · Writing – transcription (spelling)

Years 5 and 6 dictionary and thesaurus skills: parent guide

In Years 5 and 6, children are expected to use a dictionary independently to check both the spelling and the meaning of a word, to find a word when they only know its first three or four letters, and to use a thesaurus to find other words with a similar meaning. These are tools for life, and they make children more confident, more accurate and more adventurous writers.

Dictionaries and thesaurus, explained

A dictionary is a list of words in alphabetical order with information about each one. By now children should be able to alphabetise by the first letter, the second, the third and beyond, because many words share a long beginning. Guide words at the top of each page show the first and last entry on it, so a child can see quickly whether the word they want is on this page, earlier or later. Each entry has the headword, an abbreviation for the word class (n. for noun, v. for verb, adj. for adjective), one or more meanings and often an example sentence, how to say it and where the word came from.

Children are taught to use the first three or four letters of a word to check its spelling, meaning or both. This matters because the whole problem with looking up a spelling is that you do not know it. A child who wants “necessary” may know that it starts nec or nes, and the dictionary can help from there. If nothing is found, they try another version of the beginning, such as a different way of spelling the first sound. This is where phonics knowledge and spelling knowledge help one another. Words with endings are often found under the root word, so “running” is under run and “happier” is under happy.

A word can have several meanings, so children are taught to read all the entries and pick the one that fits the sentence. A “bank” can be the side of a river, a place to keep money, or a verb for tilting an aeroplane. Using context together with the dictionary is a skill: the sentence narrows down the options, and the dictionary confirms them. Schools use printed dictionaries and online versions, and the thinking is the same for both.

A thesaurus gives groups of words with similar meanings (synonyms) and sometimes opposites (antonyms). It is not a list of swaps. Synonyms differ in strength and feeling: slender, thin and scrawny all describe a lack of weight, but slender sounds admiring and scrawny does not. Children are taught to treat a thesaurus as a source of options, to say each option in the sentence and to check any unfamiliar word in a dictionary before using it. This links to writing lessons on vocabulary choices, where the aim is the most exact word, not the longest or most impressive one.

Words your child will hear

Headword: The word printed in bold at the start of a dictionary entry.
Guide words: The first and last words on a dictionary page, shown at the top to help you find the right page.
Definition: An explanation of what a word means.
Word class: The job a word does, such as noun, verb or adjective, shown as a short abbreviation in a dictionary.
Synonym: A word with a meaning close to another word, such as stroll and amble.
Antonym: A word with the opposite meaning, such as generous and mean.
Connotation: The feeling a word carries beyond its plain meaning, such as the difference between thrifty and stingy.

What the National Curriculum says

In Years 5 and 6, pupils should be taught to:

Use dictionaries to check the spelling and meaning of words
Use the first 3 or 4 letters of a word to check spelling, meaning or both of these in a dictionary
Use a thesaurus

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: checking a spelling and choosing a better word

A child has written: “The old man walked up the hill. It was necessary to rest.” She is not sure how to spell necessary, and she wants a more exact word than walked.

Spelling. She thinks it begins nes and looks up the words starting nes. She finds nest and nestle but nothing like her word. This tells her to try another beginning.
She tries nec, which also makes the sound she wanted. Using the guide words to find the right page, she finds necessary and sees that it has one c and two s’s. She copies it carefully and checks every letter.
```
nes... (not found)  →  nec... necessary
```
Meaning. The dictionary entry says necessary means needed or required, which confirms it is the right word for the sentence.
Choosing a better word. She looks up walk in the thesaurus and finds stroll, amble, march, stride, trudge, plod and wander. She now says the sentence with each one.
An old man climbing a hill and needing to rest is probably tired. Stride sounds confident and march sounds like soldiers. Trudge, which she checks in the dictionary and finds means to walk slowly with heavy steps, fits exactly.

“The old man trudged up the hill. It was necessary to rest.” Spelling checked: necessary.

Common mistakes and how to help

Believing you cannot use a dictionary unless you already know how to spell the word

It feels like a trap: if you knew the spelling, you would not need to look.

What helps: Show how to try the likely beginnings. Words that start with an “n” sound may begin n, kn or gn, and an “f” sound may begin f or ph. Looking in two or three places is normal.

Only using the first letter to find a word

In younger years finding the right letter section is a big step, and children stop there and scan a whole section.

What helps: Use the first three or four letters. Teach your child to look at the second, third and fourth letters and to use the guide words at the top of the page.

Thinking synonyms are completely interchangeable

A thesaurus lists them together, so they appear to mean the same thing.

What helps: Try each option in the sentence and ask what picture it creates. The difference between “She was thrifty” and “She was stingy” is huge, even though both describe someone careful with money.

Always taking the first meaning listed in a dictionary

The first entry feels like the main one, and children stop reading.

What helps: Read every meaning, then reread the sentence the word came from. Ask which meaning would make sense there, and say it aloud.

How to help at home

Have a dictionary at hand. A children’s dictionary or an online one is useful at the table. When your child asks how to spell something or what it means, try “Let’s look it up” before telling them.
Race to the page. Call out a word and see how quickly your child can open the dictionary to the right page using the guide words. Take turns, and aim to be fast without flicking through every page.
Swap the dull word. Pick a plain word from something your child has written, such as said, nice or big. Find three alternatives in a thesaurus, try each in the sentence and decide which one fits best.
Collect an unfamiliar word each week. When you meet a new word in a book or on the news, look it up together. Write the meaning in a notebook and see if you can all use it in conversation before the week is out.
Guess the spelling three ways. Ask your child to write a tricky word three different ways, then look it up. Which version was closest? The mistakes tell you which patterns to practise.

Builds on

Years 3 and 4: Prefixes, suffixes and homophones
Years 3 and 4: Plural apostrophes, dictionaries and dictation

Leads on to

Key Stage 3: Writing for different purposes
Key Stage 3: Organising and rhetorical devices
Key Stage 3: Drafting, editing and proofreading