Grrrr...

[Marylou]

...just found out from DS that the Y5 teacher confiscated his electronic dictionary which he was using in class. She thought he was playing on a game! When he explained what it was she told him he should be using a paper dictionary. The thing he was using is the electronic version of the Collins dictionary they use at school, for goodness sake! He got it back but didn't use it again in class for the rest of the year.

The incident happened a while ago as DS is now in Y6. We had bought him the dictionary to help with his work to improve his vocabulary for 11+ (we all know what boys are like with their gadgets ), and allowed him to take it to school so that he could carry on there and use it in class. I can't believe how short-sighted this teacher was. Fortunately his Y6 teacher seems to be more relaxed about it.



Rant over

[fatbananas]

That is annoying. Particularly with boys, you'd think teachers would be bending over backwards to get them to access WORDS!!

Would you recommend the Collins electronic dictonary? Is it the one that also has a thesaurus or are they two separate machines? By coincidence, I was looking at them this very morning! (must get dressed now and get out more ...)

[Marylou]

Would you recommend the Collins electronic dictonary? Is it the one that also has a thesaurus or are they two separate machines? By coincidence, I was looking at them this very morning! (must get dressed now and get out more ...)

Yes, definitely - a bit on the pricey side but there's a lot in there. There is a thesaurus function and also some word games like hangman, etc. Only gripes are that the "My Word List" function is limited to 40 words (or maybe that's not such a bad thing as you can keep the current "difficult" word list to manageable levels!), and the display seems quite basic by modern standards. Otherwise, quite a useful little gadget and small enough to fit into a pocket or pencil case!

[fatbananas]

Thanks for that Marylou. I shall definitely get one. .

[aargh]

It does seem silly to forbid the use of the electronic dictionary,
but in fairness to yon year 5 teacher, she is obliged to teach how to use dictionaries as part of the national curriculum. This means a paper dictionary so that the pupils grasp the skills of indexing, finding info using alphabetic order, using their own thinking to find the info they need etc. This cannot be done with an electronic version. Obviously they are most often going to be using computer type dictionaries, but they need to obtain those other skills too, for use in their future studies.
Really the teacher should teach both electronic and paper skills.