Noah Webster : Weaver of Words by Pegi Deitz Shea - Non fiction

“Words Talk”

Shea, P. D., & Vachula, M. (2009). Noah Webster: weaver of words. Honesdale: Calkins Creek.

As an English major, this book caught my attention right away! I love words, and what is a better book to be reading than a book about the man himself who logged all of them into one place, which we know as the dictionary J This book talks about Noah’s life growing up and his struggles in school. Ironically enough though, Noah’s dislike of school was not because it was to hard, but was actually because it was to easy! The reader learns that once he attended Yale University he excelled in the challenging work that faced him and in fact enjoyed every second of it! From there he, as we know became the first person ever to write the dictionary and even opened a school where he believed everyone had the right to attend.

Reading Level - 3.4

Readers: Below are a few websites that could assist in the learning and teaching of this book!

 - While sometimes we can use things without even realizing the genesis of it, bringing up this website and having students use it to find words and explain to them that the man that they just read about was the first one to create something like this could really impact them. Its important to understand how things came about and who invented it!

- This website provides activities (including jigsaw puzzles) and fun things that a teacher could use in her classroom when discussing and teaching students about Noah Webster! Definitely something I would suggest people to check out!

Vocab - Some words that might need to be pre-taught include: Weaver, dictionary, type writer, university, Yale and profession.

Activities:

Before reading:

Discussing with the students about what a dictionary is and asking if anyone knows the relationship between a dictionary and Webster could be the first step to seeing how much your students know about this topic which will allow you to adjust your teaching.

During reading:

Have the students write down things that they find to be “important” and have them explain what makes them think that!

After reading:

If allowed, it would be great to have the students be able to go to the museum where they can visual see, feel and touch the information that they just learned while extending their knowledge and even being able to learn more!