Booker's Glossary Desk — Use Guide Words to Find the Page (Grade 2)

About this activity

Booker the bear keeps the glossary and shows the child what the two words at the top of a dictionary page are for: two guide words sit at the top — like cap and cot — and the child taps the one word, from choices such as car, can, and cup, that would actually appear on that page because it falls between them in ABC order. It's a free Grade 2 vocabulary activity that runs in the browser with no account.

Guide words are a real reference tool, and the only way to use them is to compare letters in order. Between cap and cot, the word car fits (it comes after cap and before cot), while can comes too early and cup comes too late. Because the choices share their first letters, the child has to look at the second and third letters to decide — the exact alphabetizing skill that makes a dictionary or glossary usable.

It is aligned to Common Core L.2.4.e — using glossaries and beginning dictionaries to find the meaning of words. No timer, no score — just calm, playful practice.

What's inside this activity

• Designed for Grade 2 learners (ages about 7–8)
• Common Core strand: Language
• Aligned to Common Core standard L.2.4.e

How to play

Look at Booker's two guide words at the top of the page.

Tap the word from the three choices that belongs on this page — the one that comes between them in ABC order.

Not quite? Try again as many times as you like — there is no timer and no score.

What your child practices

• Reading the two guide words at the top of a glossary page
• Putting words in alphabetical order by their second and third letters
• Deciding which word falls between the guide words
• Ruling out words that come too early or too late in ABC order

Learning goals

Use guide words to find a word in a glossary or dictionary — the focus of Common Core L.2.4.e.

Alphabetize words by looking past the first letter to the next ones.

Build the reference-skill confidence that helps a child look up word meanings on their own.