Dictionary Skills: coconut crab
The Grammar Bit!
Learning how to use a dictionary is an important skill. Dictionaries can be used to help you understand the meaning of a word. They can also be used to help you spell a word correctly.
Dictionaries are ordered alphabetically with words that begin with A at the front and those that begin with Z at the back. Once you have found the general location of a word in the dictionary, you will need to look at the second and sometimes the third letter of a word to find its exact location.
Read the three scintillating sentences opposite. With your talk partner, use a dictionary to quickly locate one of the words highlighted in bold. How quickly were you able to do this? What is the meaning of this word?
Scintillating Sentences
1) The coconut crab is a nocturnal animal that lives on islands in the southwest Pacific and Indian Oceans.
2) A relative of the hermit crab, the coconut crab is a crustacean which can grow up to a metre long!
3) Taking food from other animals and what’s lying around, coconut crabs are known as scavengers.
Did you know?
In addition to coconuts, a coconut crab’s diet may include other tropical fruits, fallen plant material, dead and decaying animals, rats, birds and other crab species. They’ll even eat members of their own kind!