REFERENCE MATERIALSThird Grade Writing Strategies 1.3: Understand the structure and organization of various reference materials

MANY TYPES OF REFERENCE MATERIALS

EncyclopediaAtlasDictionaryThesaurusPhone BookAlmanacPeriodical

ENCYCLOPEDIA 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?

ATLAS

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.

DICTIONARY

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…

THESAURUS 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.

PHONE 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!!!

PERIODICAL

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.

DO 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?

CHALLENGE QUESTION ONE

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?

ANSWER

Encyclopedia

Great Job!!!

CHALLENGE QUESTIONNUMBER TWO

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?

ANSWER

Atlas

Great Work!!!!

CHALLENGE QUESTIONNUMBER THREE

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?

ANSWER

Dictionary

Fantastic!!!!!

CHALLENGE QUESTION NUMBER FOUR

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?

ANSWER

Thesaurus

Wonderful Job!!!!

CHALLENGE QUESTION NUMBER FIVE

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?

ANSWER

Atlas

Fantastic Job!!!!

CHALLENGE QUESTION NUMBER SIX

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?

ANSWER

Thesaurus

Excellent Job!!!!!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

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.