A new approach to preparation of school dictionaries: Level dictionaries (Example of primary 6th grade)

Native language activities, particularly in Turkish lesson compose the basis for all other lessons. Child who experience texts that are appropriate for his/her level, created by artist sensivity and adumbrating the meaning subtleties of native language gives meaning to the universe which surrounds himself/herself in both school life and daily life. Education environments that responds to the interests and needs; help to improve sensual, motional, cognitive and linguistic skills in a healthy manner should be presented especially to the 6th grade students in the age group of 11-12, who are experiencing the transition from the concrete operations period to the abstract operations period. That is, one the most important reference of these education environments is dictionary.The purpose of this study is, how to prepare the Turkish Dictionary for Primary 6th Grade which is appropriate to modern lexicolography principles, methods and datas; which does not ignore the needs of child, which make them feel the intricacies of Turkish language and help to internalize the universe that surrounds them. In this context, related studies in literature examined, then by giving theoretical knowledge about native language education, literate texts' -that are appropriate to students' fields of skill development- effect on vocabulary mentioned. Theoretical knowledge given, related studies mentioned under the main headings of native language and native language education, vocabulary and dictionary.Vocabulary items divide into two categories as active vocabulary and passive vocabulary. Items used in speaking and writing are active vocabulary items and items which are known as latent in listening/watching and reading are passive vocabulary items. In practice first of all; in order to determine vocabulary items, 12 (twelve) books from literate qualitative children's literature, 6 (six) books from 100 Essential Readings and literate texts from 6th grade Turkish textbooks that determined according to the results of scientific studies and expert opinions, oriented for child's language and meaning nature was chosen, scanned and transferred to Cibakaya 2.2 concordance program and a large pool of vocabulary have been created.In order to determine students' active vocabulary items; speaking and writing practices have been made with students selected randomly, in the town of Adapazari -which has a position as central district in the province Sakarya- from 4 (four) schools, where their success level is different from each other. Lexemes starting with letter a in the pool of vocabulary, ordered by alphabetically. Lexemes in the created list were presented to expert opinion with their use in context and experts were asked to determine the items that they think inappopriate to children's level.In accordance with feedbacks from experts; lexemes, that prepared in the light of modern lexicolography principles, methods and datas; organized according to the criteria of frequency and prevalence and starts with only letter a inserted into dictionary. If lexemes' grammatical types come from a foreign language, they are defined with their origin and their special area of usage; and by giving sample sentences the final form of the Turkish Dictionary For Primary 6th Grade were given.Keywords: Level Dictioanary, Lexeme, Vocabulary, Lexicography, Literary Text.