In this dyslexia blog article I want to talk about using a thesaurus.
Many dyslexics find it difficult to find a word in a dictionary because if they don’t know the first few letters then they can’t find the correct word easily. In a earlier article I referred to some specialized dictionaries that might be more useful for the dyslexic student to use than the standard dictionary.
Another useful strategy is to teach your child to use a thesaurus so that they can identify spellings.
What is a thesaurus ?
A thesaurus is a collection of synonyms (words or phrases with a similar meaning ) and antonyms ( words or phrases with a opposite meaning ) .
There are two types of thesaurus one which is like a dictionary were the words are in alphabetical order.The other lists the words in a index form which is in the back of the book.
Microsoft word has its own thesaurus which students can make use of in their studies. There are also some online versions of a thesaurus like :
reference thesaurus com
There is also a Visual Thesaurus available online which gives visual diagrams of all similar meaning words.
Your child must first think of a easier word which they able to spell, but which has a similar meaning to the word they are looking for. Eg sad
After they look in the thesaurus under sad to find a more difficult word that they can’t spell eg morose .
Other examples :
Small – miniscule
Thin – gaunt
Dictionary – thesaurus
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