Who can use the dictionary?

This dictionary is designed to be used by parents, teacher aides, and teacher with pre-school and year one children who want a head start to literacy development. It has also been developed for student who may be working with the support teacher, reading specialist or speech pathologist because they are having difficulty learning the sound-letter relationships and the alphabet.

How do you use it?

In the surfing sound dictionary each of the letters of the alphabet are listed in order. The child carries out activities that explain how to read and write the letters, how to make the sounds, and how to develop letter-sound awareness. The child is further encouraged to add their own drawings, to paste magazine pictures or to write in words for each letter. The more the child personalizes the dictionary, the more meaningful it is for him or her.

Strategies and activities for enhancing children's learning are presented in this manual. There also a number of games and charts, and sample lesson plan to support this strategy.

Remember to follow up the daily work in the dictionary with environmental literacy experiences such as choosing a book to read: looking for words around the home: helping with shopping by reading labels or watching adults read and write.