The American Heritage First Dictionary (American Heritage Dictionary)

Rating:
Summary: Not sure of reading age group!
Review: Here is a dictionary that your son/daughter will enjoy using, as well as learn. Sounding out words and being able to see a picture of the word is an extremely powerful tool. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Only for young elementary children
Review: I bought this for my son in 4th grade hoping he would find it very useful. However when he tried to look up the word "reflect" so he could see how to spell it, the word was not in this dictionary. For children in 1st or 2nd grade, this dictionary might be fine, but children in 3rd grade or higher will need a dictionery with more than 50,000 words. My search continues...

Rating:
Summary: Only for young elementary children
Review: I bought this for my son in 4th grade hoping he would find it very useful. However when he tried to look up the word "reflect" so he could see how to spell it, the word was not in this dictionary. For children in 1st or 2nd grade, this dictionary might be fine, but children in 3rd grade or higher will need a dictionery with more than 50,000 words. My search continues...

Rating:
Summary: Not sure of reading age group!
Review: The Synopsis states that it is a great book for 6 and 7 year olds, yet the age recommendation states for 9 thru 12 year olds. Which age group IS it for?

Rating:
Summary: A nice start for 1st and 2nd graders...
Review: This book is a nice place for first and second graders to start when they need to look up a word. It has 650 color illustrations (drawings and photographs), 1,800 entries, and pretty well covers the beginning words used by young readers. Each entry has a definition, as well as uses the word in a sentence to give context. If there is more than one definition, they are numbered in order of common usage. Variant forms of the word are listed at the end of the definition. The illustrations are bright and cute, and the type is large enough to facilitate easy reading.

My only real quibble with this book is that there is no pronunciation guide given for words. I realize youngsters might not be able to use such a guide all the time, but it would be good to have anyway. All in all a nice book for the 5-7 age range, but if you're looking for older kids, look elsewhere.