Visuwords
By Erin Brereton,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Sparse site has potential but offers limited info on vocab.
A Lot or a Little?
What you will—and won't—find in this website.
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What’s It About?
Using information from Princeton's researcher-and-student-created WordNet open source database, Visuwords provides meaning and usage examples and shows a word's connection to other terms and concepts. Synonyms branch off from the original term in a tree-like diagram. Color-coded dots indicate if the word is a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb; dotted and solid lines highlight verb group connections. Kids also learn if a word describes a type of something, such as wheat being a type of grain, or serves as an example of a larger topic.
Is It Any Good?
VISUWORDS says its content is ideal for "writers, journalists, students, teachers, and artists." Those groups (and others) would likely benefit from the site's visual thesaurus capabilities, which show how words are connected. Kids see terms branch off from other words, indicating how verbs, adjectives, nouns, and adverbs relate, which can help them increase their vocabulary and better understand usage. However, the database appears to be somewhat limited; some words don't connect to many other terms. Visuwords also provides a pretty insulated, repetitive experience. Kids don't get feedback on what they're doing, and aside from searching for a term, the only other site activity involves requesting a randomly generated word. Visuwords may help kids build on the language lessons they're learning in school and serve as an occasional resource--but don't expect it to fully replace the need for word-centric reference materials.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how words connect to each other, hyponyms and hypernyms, and how they're used in sentences. Can your child think of an example where it would be better to use a word that describes a specific part of an action or item, instead of a more general term?
Visuwords offers a visual view of how words relate. Does knowing how words are similar help you speak or write more clearly?
Are there any other subjects your child shows interest in that you can help research online? Can you find any similar visual aids that help thoroughly explain a topic?
Website Details
- Subjects: Social Studies: events, historical figures, Language & Reading: letter or word recognition, vocabulary
- Skills: Self-Direction: academic development, personal growth, Thinking & Reasoning: part-whole relationships
- Genre: Educational
- Pricing structure: Free
- Last updated: November 5, 2015
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