R EFERENCE M ATERIALS Third Grade Writing Strategies 1.3: Understand the structure and organization of various reference materials

MANY T YPES OF R EFERENCE M ATERIALS Encyclopedia Atlas Dictionary Thesaurus Phone Book Almanac Periodical

E NCYCLOPEDIA Why do we use encyclopedias? An encyclopedia is used when someone wants to find information about a person, place, or thing. You may want to find out information about George Washington. You can learn about him from reading information in an encyclopedia. **Information about people is found under their LAST names…Martin Luther King Jr. would be found under “K”, not “M” or “L”--- Which letter would you go under to fin George Washington Carver?

A TLAS An atlas is a book of maps. If you want to find a specific place, street, road, city, or state. Many people use an atlas when they are going on vacation or traveling to another place. You can use an atlas to get somewhere, find directions, find the population, or location of a city, etc.

D ICTIONARY We use a dictionary to look up words. You will find the meaning of words in a dictionary. For example, when you do not know the meaning of a word in a story. You may use a dictionary to look up the meaning of the word. You can also find which part of speech a word is, its pronunciation, and how many syllables are in the word, as well as the word origin…

T HESAURUS In a thesaurus, you will find synonyms and antonyms for words. First, you look up the word in the thesaurus. Next to the word you will find a list of words that mean the same (synonym)as the word you looked up. i.e. rabbit-bunny Also in a thesaurus you will find an antonym (opposite meaning) for the word. Like horrible or awful would be an antonym for wonderful.

P HONE BOOK A book which lists the name, phone number, and usually street address of homes or businesses You can find businesses under the “yellow pages” of the telephone book-in alphabetical order, by the type of business it is. i.e. Little Ceasar’s would be under “P” for pizza… Which letter do you think “Perko’s” would be under? YES- “R” for Restaurant!!!

P ERIODICAL Newspapers, magazines, or journals which give current events The Tracy Press, TIME Magazine, and Southern Medical Journal are examples of periodicals. You can get recent updates and information in a specific subject based on the type of periodical. i.e. newspapers give current news, medical journals will contain the latest in medical research

ALMANAC An almanac is a book that comes out each year with information about a specific subject, and often contains statistics, or lists, or dates of events. The Farmer’s Almanac, Sports Almanac, and World Almanac are some examples. To find numbers or lists of something that happened in a specific year, us an almanac.

D O YOU KNOW ? For the next couple of slides I will describe a situation. You must decide what type of reference material would be used in this situation. Do you know what reference material to use?

C HALLENGE Q UESTION O NE My teacher has assigned a report on the country of Mexico. I need to find information on when the country began and who lived there in ancient times. Where would I find this type of information?

A NSWER Encyclopedia Great Job!!!

C HALLENGE Q UESTION N UMBER T WO My family is planning a vacation to Florida. We are going to Universal Studios. I am so excited! My father is trying to decide what interstate he needs to take. Or how to get their from Tennessee? What reference material should he use to find this information?

A NSWER Atlas Great Work!!!!

C HALLENGE Q UESTION N UMBER T HREE Jimmy is working on writing a sentence with each of his spelling words. He comes to a word he does not know. How can he find the definition of the word? What reference material should he use to find this information?

A NSWER Dictionary Fantastic!!!!!

C HALLENGE Q UESTION N UMBER F OUR I am writing a story about my experience at the Spelling Bee. I want to find another word to use instead of saying great. Where can I find a word that means the same as great? What reference material would I use to find this information?

A NSWER Thesaurus Wonderful Job!!!!

C HALLENGE Q UESTION N UMBER F IVE Jane is working on a research paper for her third grade class. She is trying to find information about how people in France celebrate Christmas. First, she must find out where her country is located and some of the major cities. Where would she find this information? What reference material would she use for this report?

A NSWER Atlas Fantastic Job!!!!

C HALLENGE Q UESTION N UMBER S IX Tracy is learning new vocabulary that goes along with her reading story for this week. Her teacher has explained the word to the class. Tracy would like to find another word that means the same as the vocabulary word she is working on. Where can she find this information? What reference material should Tracy use to find a synonym for this word?

A NSWER Thesaurus Excellent Job!!!!!

R EFERENCE M ATERIALS Reference materials like encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, and thesaurus help us find information. It would be hard to find the information we need without these materials. The internet has all of these reference materials. So, if you don’t have these things at your home you will be able to find them on the computer.