Author: Wordsmyth

Introducing our NEW dictionary: the Elementary Children’s Dictionary! 

Our NEW Elementary Children’s Dictionary, written specifically for children in grades 3 to 5, defines words in a highly readable, full-sentence style that explains word meaning to kids.  It’s full of easy-to-understand definitions for both basic and academic vocabulary, multiple meanings of headwords, and child-friendly example sentences. And it’s brimming with clear and helpful illustrations and engaging photos. 

Go ahead and explore a few entries from the Elementary Dictionary and get a taste of how this exciting new resource explains meaning to kids! Here are links to “authority,” “territory,” “devote,” “sacrifice,” and “evidence,” all words taken from our list of most looked-up entries at the children’s level.

The Children’s Dictionary Suite

The addition of the Elementary Dictionary transformed the former Wordsmyth Children’s Dictionary into a dictionary suite that contains two levels:

• Elementary Dictionary for grades 3-5
• Intermediate Dictionary for grades 6-8

You can choose either level as the default for your students.

The Children’s Dictionary Suite also contains a hidden advanced level, which satisfies the needs of the most curious and advanced students. The Wordsmyth Advanced Dictionary includes over 100,000 entries.  If a word is not found in either of the Children’s levels, the entry from the Advanced Dictionary will become available, regardless of the default level chosen for the Children’s Suite.  Inappropriate entries for children are blocked by the Parental Filter.

For your convenience, we’ve created a number of wordlists for you to use or to just get a sense of the new Children’s Dictionary Suite. The words in these lists are derived from the most looked-up words in our original Children’s Dictionary since January of this year. These links will take you to the Activities page. Simply click “Preview” to see each list of words with their definitions. Be sure to click “Show examples” to get a richer sense of what the dictionaries offer.

Special discount on our Educational Group Subscription for school districts

The Wordsmyth Educational Group Subscription is designed for educators to manage and interact with their students using Teacher Tools.  These tools allow teachers to set up their classes, create lessons with desired wordlists, and monitor their students’ vocabulary learning.

At the beginning of this new school year, we will offer a 20% discount for all school districts in the United States having more than 1000 students. Please contact us at support@wordsmyth.net by the end of October 31 to receive this discount.

The Wordsmyth team is working hard to add more new features in accordance with our users’ requests. Please contact us with your feedback, and stay tuned for future updates!

Wordsmyth Dictionary database has been updated

Wordsmyth puts great effort each year into keeping its dictionary up to date. In 2023, we focused particularly on adding words related to history, weather, and geography.  Here are a few examples of our new additions:

• cooping
• atmospheric river
• Naypyidaw

Great news for our users on mobile devices!

With this recent update, Wordsmyth websites (www.wordsmyth.net and kids.wordsmyth.net) have been optimized for use on all devices regardless of screen size. Now you can make full use of Wordsmyth on any mobile phone or tablet.  Check it out! 

If you’re not already a subscriber, please consider joining us! Subscription helps us continue our work and gives access to all our premium dictionary features, including Parental Filter, Word Parts feature, Spanish support, Grammatical Patterns, and the Word Combinations feature.  Subscription also allows for full access to WILD and higher level use of the Vocabulary Center. And don’t forget that we always welcome your feedback. It’s invaluable in helping us improve our products and services.

A new Language collection has been added to WILD 

To help teachers explain the complex concepts of parts of speech to young children, we have added a Parts of Speech collection to our other collections that focus on language concepts.  All of the entries (“part of speech,” “noun,” “verb,” “adjective,” etc.) are defined within a controlled vocabulary for children and are fully animated.  Clicking to see the full entry for each of the items in the collection will bring up more detailed definitions and example sentences to give additional support for the teaching of these concepts.

Choose Wordsmyth Educational Group Subscription to give your Pre-K to 2nd grade students full access to WILD. No Registration or login is required for students. Wordsmyth does not collect any personal information related to your students. 

1. Word of the Year writing contest submission

Word lovers, vocabulary learners, teachers, and students: it is time to start thinking about the Word of the Year 2023!

1. Choose your word.
2. Write about it.
3. Submit your word and essay!

Read more about Wordsmyth WOTY Essay contest for 2023. Find inspiration from the most searched-for words so far this year.

2. Free vocabulary resources in the Wordsmyth blog

In addition to Wordsmyth dictionaries and vocabulary tools on our website, the Wordsmyth blog is also a great resource for language learners and teachers. And it’s completely free. For example, Language Notes is one of our most popular topics. Here are a few highlights:

• In addition…. Moreover…, and furthermore…!
• Transitive vs. Intransitive Verbs
• The meaning of quantity expressions

Check out other free resources in the Wordsmyth blog. For our subscribers, there are additional features that appear in individual dictionary entries that help users understand how the word they looked up is formed, what other words tend to be combined with the word, and what ways the word can be used in a sentence.

3. Hidden features in the Wordsmyth site

Wordsmyth has many hidden but very useful features for our most serious users.

If you are a curriculum director in a school district, you may be using the Wordlist Maker frequently. Did you know that you can sort your list in several different ways to help you organize it so that it best suits your purpose?

If you are a kindergarten teacher and have a child who only speaks Spanish, it may help you to know that you can use the search box to look up a Spanish Word in WILD and get the equivalent English entry.

If you are interested in using Wordsmyth to its highest potential, we provide a series of help documents to assist you. Take a look!

Thank you for using Wordsmyth!

Wild card search

Did you know that Wordsmyth’s dictionary search box permits the use of wild card symbols?  

The question mark (?) and the asterisk (*)—these unassuming symbols are surprisingly powerful, as they can represent any letter or string of letters in a word. Understanding how to use them will increase your ability to find words you can’t spell or don’t fully recall. Wild card symbols also allow you to find groups of words that contain a particular letter pattern.

Read more…

Where is the thesaurus?

We’re often asked “Where’s the thesaurus in your dictionary?” What some users don’t recognize right away is that synonyms, similar words, and antonyms are matched with each sense of a word and appear directly under the appropriate definition for a particular headword.  A user doesn’t need to click anywhere to get thesaurus information and doesn’t need to leave the page in order to see it.  In other words, the thesaurus is not a separate entity, but something built into the dictionary entries themselves. This is why we call it an “integrated thesaurus.”

Read more…

Have an idea but not the word?

“Reverse search” is an advanced search tool that allows you to search within the full text of the dictionary for words, word parts, or phrases that may be useful to you, either in finding a word for a meaning you have in mind or in finding a pool of words for writing inspiration or assignments. A typical way of using the reverse search feature in Search Tools is to search for words that have the search term in their definitions or example sentences.

Read more…

Since last year’s release of Teacher Tools, the key component of our Educational Group Subscription, we have received a good deal of constructive feedback as well as questions about the new features. We have collected the most frequently asked questions to help you get started with Teacher Tools this new school year.

Teacher Tools FAQ

• As a teacher, I wonder if I can hide or disable the “Check Answer” feature in the quizzes that I create for my students?

When you set the lessons for “test” mode, Help functions such as “check answers” will be disabled for your students. Other functions will also be locked exactly as you have determined them. Please note that the quiz operates in test mode only after you click the “Go” button. This is to make sure you’ve reviewed the activity and decided that what you see if what you want for your students.   

• I can’t choose the test mode while assigning assessments to my students. What’s worng?

The option for test mode becomes active inside the activity after clicking the “Go” button. The option is displayed but disabled on the initial screen. 

Our development team has been working to improve the design to convey the message more clearly and changes will be implemented at our next update. We may decide that radio buttons should be in gray when they are disabled. Let us know if you have any more questions or suggestions for improvement. 

• I’m a teacher who still prints tests.  When tests print, the choices for one question sometimes get bumped to the next page.  Please tell me how to fix this.  

In Multiple Choice, after you click the print button, check the “Set Page Break by Click” option shown at the top of the page. Then when you move your mouse, you will see a gray line appear at the bottom of the question where you put your cursor. Find the best spot to break the page, and just click on the page break line.

Now click Print. The page should print as you set it.  

• I’ve tried out Teacher Tools with an Individual Subscription, what makes an Educational Group Subscription different?

The Educational Group Subscription provides premium features through a unique school URL. After the payment transaction is completed, teachers receive a confirmation email with a link to their school start page (www.wordsmyth.net/school/your_school_name/start). Through the start page, all users on the group subscription, (teacher or teachers, students, assistants) will be able to make use of Wordsmyth’s premium educational features, including Teacher Tools that allow educators to interact with their students. In other words, each subscription is given its own start page and each teacher or student can use this start page to get access to subscription privileges. We recommend bookmarking your school start page or adding the URL as a link on your school’s website.

Subscribe now and start your new school year with the support of Wordsmyth dictionaries and vocabulary tools.