REFERENCE MATERIALS
Third Grade
Writing Strategies 1.3: Understand the
structure and organization of various
reference materials
MANY
TYPES OF REFERENCE MATERIALS
 Encyclopedia
 Atlas
 Dictionary
 Thesaurus
 Phone
Book
 Almanac
 Periodical
ENCYCLOPEDIA
Why do we use encyclopedias?
 An encyclopedia is used when someone wants to
find information about a person, place, or thing.
 You may want to find out information about
George Washington. You can learn about him
from reading information in an encyclopedia.
 **Information about people is found under their
LAST names…Martin Luther King Jr. would be
found under “K”, not “M” or “L”--- Which letter
would you go under to fin George Washington
Carver?

ATLAS
An atlas is a book of maps.
 If you want to find a specific place, street, road,
city, or state.
 Many people use an atlas when they are going on
vacation or traveling to another place.
 You can use an atlas to get somewhere, find
directions, find the population, or location of a
city, etc.

DICTIONARY
We use a dictionary to look up words.
 You will find the meaning of words in a
dictionary.
 For example, when you do not know the meaning
of a word in a story. You may use a dictionary to
look up the meaning of the word.
 You can also find which part of speech a word is,
its pronunciation, and how many syllables are in
the word, as well as the word origin…

THESAURUS
In a thesaurus, you will find synonyms and
antonyms for words.
 First, you look up the word in the thesaurus.
Next to the word you will find a list of words that
mean the same (synonym)as the word you looked
up. i.e. rabbit-bunny
 Also in a thesaurus you will find an antonym
(opposite meaning) for the word. Like horrible or
awful would be an antonym for wonderful.

PHONE BOOK
A book which lists the name, phone number, and
usually street address of homes or businesses
 You can find businesses under the “yellow pages”
of the telephone book-in alphabetical order, by
the type of business it is. i.e. Little Ceasar’s
would be under “P” for pizza…
 Which letter do you think “Perko’s” would be
under? YES- “R” for Restaurant!!!

PERIODICAL
Newspapers, magazines, or journals which give
current events
 The Tracy Press, TIME Magazine, and Southern
Medical Journal are examples of periodicals.
 You can get recent updates and information in a
specific subject based on the type of periodical.
i.e. newspapers give current news, medical
journals will contain the latest in medical
research

ALMANAC
An almanac is a book that comes out each year
with information about a specific subject, and
often contains statistics, or lists, or dates of
events.
 The Farmer’s Almanac, Sports Almanac, and
World Almanac are some examples.
 To find numbers or lists of something that
happened in a specific year, us an almanac.

DO YOU KNOW?
For the next couple of slides I will describe a
situation. You must decide what type of
reference material would be used in this
situation.
 Do you know what reference material to use?

CHALLENGE QUESTION
ONE
My teacher has assigned a report on the country
of Mexico. I need to find information on when the
country began and who lived there in ancient
times.
 Where would I find this type of information?

ANSWER
Encyclopedia
Great
Job!!!
CHALLENGE QUESTION
NUMBER TWO
My family is planning a vacation to Florida. We
are going to Universal Studios. I am so excited!
My father is trying to decide what interstate he
needs to take. Or how to get their from
Tennessee?
 What reference material should he use to find
this information?

ANSWER
Atlas
Great
Work!!!!
CHALLENGE QUESTION
NUMBER THREE
Jimmy is working on writing a sentence with each
of his spelling words. He comes to a word he does
not know. How can he find the definition of the
word? What reference material should he use to
find this information?
ANSWER
Dictionary
Fantastic!!!!!
CHALLENGE QUESTION
NUMBER FOUR

I am writing a story about my experience at the
Spelling Bee. I want to find another word to use
instead of saying great. Where can I find a word
that means the same as great? What reference
material would I use to find this information?
ANSWER
Thesaurus
Wonderful
Job!!!!
CHALLENGE QUESTION
NUMBER FIVE
 Jane
is working on a research paper for
her third grade class. She is trying to find
information about how people in France
celebrate Christmas. First, she must find
out where her country is located and some
of the major cities. Where would she find
this information?
 What reference material would she use for
this report?
ANSWER
Atlas
Fantastic
Job!!!!
CHALLENGE QUESTION
NUMBER SIX
Tracy is learning new vocabulary that goes
along with her reading story for this week.
Her teacher has explained the word to the
class. Tracy would like to find another
word that means the same as the
vocabulary word she is working on.
Where can she find this information?
What reference material should Tracy use
to find a synonym for this word?
ANSWER
Thesaurus
Excellent
Job!!!!!
REFERENCE MATERIALS
 Reference
materials like encyclopedias,
dictionaries, atlases, and thesaurus help
us find information.
 It would be hard to find the information
we need without these materials.
The internet has all of these reference
materials. So, if you don’t have these
things at your home you will be able to
find them on the computer.