Students must understand the alphabetical arrangement of dictionaries. One strategy to teach this skill requires students to arrange a list of words into alphabetical order. Supply a list of words that are not common to your students' vocabularies. Some of the words should feature identical beginning letters to ensure students learn to alphabetize words by letters subsequent to the first letter. Have students arrange all of the words into alphabetical order. Then, have them look up each word in a dictionary and copy down one of the given definitions.
In addition to multiple definitions, dictionaries also contain a letter indicating the word form, as well as a pronunciation guide. This information is helpful when encountering a new word. Supply students with a worksheet that lists all of the word forms, such as "noun" and "adjective," and include multiple examples of each word form. Have students match each word to the proper word form. Allow them to reference a dictionary if necessary. Then, have students write their own pronunciation guide for each given word and compare their guides to those listed in the dictionary.
A necessary skill for quick dictionary navigation is skim reading. Skim reading allows students to quickly locate a word in the dictionary and pick out the relevant information. A strategy to develop this skill is to create a classroom game in which students look up as many words as possible on a given list. Set a time limit, then tell them to copy down the first definition of each word on the list. Observe students' performance during the game and give skim reading pointers to students who are struggling to locate the words quickly. By the end of the exercise, students will be able to quickly locate the keyword they are searching for on the page, as well as the relevant information.
Another classroom game strategy for teaching dictionary skills is to have students look up random words that they find interesting. This gives students the chance to explore dictionaries in a more casual manner, as well as the chance to learn new words. They will then share their favorite words and definitions with the class. Since students are given the autonomy to choose their own words, they will likely retain the information more thoroughly.