One of the issues to be considered while preparing school dictionaries is the selection of examples/exemplifications that will facilitate the dictionary user in learning the meaning of the word. In this research, it was aimed to reveal the need of dictionaries in terms of examples by comparing Turkish textbooks and school dictionaries and to examine the dictionaries in the light of the principles that should be considered in the selection of examples. In the selection of school dictionaries, attention was paid to ensure that they were suitable for the primary school level and that the headlines in the dictionary included examples. In the study, basic qualitative research design was used. A total of six school dictionaries, three of which were illustrated, were examined and the data were collected by document analysis technique. The examples in the school dictionaries were compared with the words in the primary school Turkish textbooks and the examples were evaluated according to the principles created as a result of the literature review. It was seen that there are generally realistic, convincing, level-appropriate and semantic distinguisher sentences in the dictionaries. However, since the dictionaries are not comprehensive, they cannot fully meet the needs of the students. Also, spelling and punctuation errors were found. Besides “Should examples be based on authentic material or should they be written by the lexicographer?” question has been discussed.

Dictionary, school dictionaries, examples, exemplification.