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About the pagination of this eBook Due to the unique page numbering scheme of this book, the electronic pagination of the eBook does not match the pagination of the printed version. To navigate the text, please use the electronic Table of Contents that appears alongside the eBook or the Search function. For citation purposes, use the page numbers that appear in the text. B R I TA N N I C A DI SC OV ER Y LIBRARY 9 R S O D W In this book, you will: learn about different kinds of words. discover how to make letters using your hands. answer fun questions. find lots of word activities at the back of the book. C HICAGO L ONDON N EW D ELHI PARIS S EOUL S YDNEY TAIPEI T OKYO How do you talk to a friend? With words! These grapes are good. Do you want some? I’m hungry! I like cookies! Everyone uses words. We use words to tell others what we think and how we feel. We use words to ask questions and to answer questions too. 2 What is your dog’s name? His name is Bobo. Sit up, Bobo! 3 If you didn’t have words, how would you ever read a book? And how could you talk about a trip you took? With words you can talk about your brand new bike. You can ask for any ice cream flavor you like. Without words, you couldn’t answer a question at school or shout to your friend at the swimming pool. You can tell your friends what you did today. Words are important in so many ways! 4 5 Think of when you were a very little baby. You didn’t know any words. You only made sounds. You cried when you were hungry or tired. You pointed at things you wanted, or you tried to reach for them. You made all kinds of silly sounds that did not make sense. All babies do this before they learn to talk. 6 7 But how did you learn to talk? Most babies learn to talk by hearing others speaking. First, they start to understand the words they hear. Then they try to make these sounds too. Finally, babies begin to say a few real words. As babies become toddlers, they learn many words very fast. They learn to put words together to ask for what they want. They understand what others are saying to them. the was d t a Wh st wor d? fir er sai ev you 8 9 Some people are born deaf. This means they cannot hear or do not hear well. Babies who are deaf cannot learn words by listening to people talk. cookie As they grow up, they learn to make words with their hands. This is called sign language. People who are deaf may not speak words. But they still talk! 10 11 We may speak or sign or write words. But all words are made from the letters of the alphabet. He A re are the B alligator bear I C J insect queen 12 R raccoon D Susan F E G fox elephant H hippopotamus goat cat L M T U V king S a e lpha h t f o bet . dog K jellyfish Q s r e lett The alphabet begins with the letter A. It ends with the letter Z. Altogether, our alphabet has 26 letters. N O turtle umbrella panda opossum lizard violets P Nancy monkey W wolf X xylophone Y yak Z zebra 13 Th ere are three ways of making each lett e r in th e a lp habe t. We can make UPPERCASE letters or lowercase letters. Uppercase letters are bigger than lowercase letters. They are sometimes called capital letters. This is an uppercase A. This is a lowercase a. y man How case A’s d er upp you fin can this in re? pictu 14 How low many a’s c ercas e a in th n you fi is pi ctur nd e? We can also make a sign for every letter by using our hand. This is the sign for the letter A. 15