The Weighty Word Book

by Paul M. Levitt, Elissa S. Guralnick

This new edition of the longtime favorite of teachers, parents, and children introduces beginning readers to multisyllabic words, such as "zealot" or "abasement," with whimsical stories and puns.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Teaching

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Paul M. Levitt is professor emeritus of English at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he taught modern drama, theater, history, and the gangster novel. He has written more than 20 books (six of them novels), radio plays for the BBC, books about medicine, stories for children, and numerous popular and scholarly articles. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Reviews

[Tym · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book for a young reader looking to expand their vocabulary. Each letter of the alphabet gets a “weighty word” such as “Truculent” and a humorous story is told with comedic and well-drawn illustrations that ends with a pun that not only explains the meaning of the word but how to accurately pronounce them as well.

[Gale · Rating 5 out of 5]

abasement, bifurcate, coruscate, dogmatic, expedient, felicity, geriatrics, heresy, ingratiate, juxtapose, kleptomaniac, laxity, misdemeanor, nonconformity, ostracize, paradox, quixotic, raucous, Scintillate, truculent, ubiquitous, vacillate, winsome, xenophobia, yammer, zealot



Exceptional teaching book for parent or teacher sharing
I will read it again and again and be sure the grandchildren have a copy in their homes

Uses a memory pun to remember the words, one given for 26 different little stories, each with a pun to help you remember a multi-syLlabi.c word, one for each alphabet letter,
Not only teaches word meaning but a valuable technique for remembering other words or names they meet in the future

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was in the sixth grade, one of my teachers read this book aloud to her classes. It uses a one to two page story to tell a story that will define a big word (example--dogmatic means stubborn, so it tells the story of a dog mat tick, who refused to live on the dog with her parents and went to live in the dog's mat instead), making it easy for kids (and adults!) to learn big words. There is one word for every letter of the alphabet. Each story has a beautiful illustration to go with it. Everyone should read this book!

[Randie D. Camp, M.S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

OMG! I picked this up randomly at the library but it turns out that my seventh grade language arts teacher used this book to teach us our vocabulary. I'm not sure why, but the "dogmatic" story stuck in my memory all these years :).

Levitt, Burger, Guralnick, and Stevens make a great team. The word choice, stories, and illustrations work well together. The stories could use some updating for the current generations but I still find them relevant and helpful for teaching the meaning of these 26 words.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this book! It came to me through my daughter as her H.S. English teacher was reading it to them. I love the way the author has created puns to help understand and increase vocabulary. I started reading it to my own students, and will start the year with it.

[Donalyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Silly imaginative stories help students learn the meanings of 26 multi-syllabic words (one for each letter of the alphabet).

[Barb Keltner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very clever stories to explain "weighty" words! One of my favorites was "Ubiquitous" -- but they were all fun, A-Z!

[GaBeRock · Rating 5 out of 5]

CENTRAL ACADEMY REPS GO HERE

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each letter of the alphabet matches a "big" word. The accompanying story is kind of silly but provides a way to remember the meaning of the word by having something about the story end up sounding like the word. For example, in one story, a circus manager (Mr. Sawdust) was looking for a new act. After watching several, here comes Cora, a skater whose skating is dazzling, glittering, sparkling. The story ends in the manner of all of them: "So, whenever someone (or something) glitters and gleams, sparkles and flashes, think of Mr. Sawdust saying, "Boy, can that Cora skate," and you will remember the word coruscate." The stories are generally well written and have clever character names. Some of them feel a little more contrived than others--but when I imagine giving this task to students (to write a story that provides a reminder of the word's sound that explains what it means), I am impressed. It can't be as easy as it looks.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find it interesting the trend in children's informational books: they are almost textbook like. If I were still teaching an English class, I would probably use this book to teach both reading and vocabulary. I like the text feature techniques the author uses to help students learn words: illustrations, Bold print and and a story to help remember what the word means.

The only change I would make is to include somewhere in the book sentences actually using the word correctly as one or more parts of speech. It couled be done at the end of each "chapter"/ word story or in a glossary at the end of the book. Actual inclusion of the word into every day use is the only area the book does not cover well.

[Davelowusa · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most inventive books about words for children.

One example: the story behind the word xenophobia. Four foreigners walked into a bar and tried to order four beers. When they said, in heavily accented voices, "zee need fo bee-uh", they were laughed at and feared by the bar's jingoistic regulars. And that's where we get the word xenophobia.

There are 25 other such stories.

[Felicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute way to help you remember the definition of hard words.

[Shawna]

This book provides fresh new ways to introduce vocabulary to students.

[Dorothee · Rating 5 out of 5]

read in 6th grade, but I still remember the creative stories of each word and it really helped my vocabulary