Student Dictionary Project

Every year the Centreville Rotary Club gives each third grader in the school district their very own dictionary. The club provides a hard copy of a dictionary for the students to keep. 

When club members visit the classrooms to deliver the books, it is obvious how excited the children are to receive them. Some have anticipated having their own dictionary because an older sibling or classmate has one.

The dictionaries, which are also almanacs, help students learn new words, see the longest word in the language, go over a list of the presidents of the USA, and even learn a little about American Sign Language. This year, Rotarians asked teachers if the dictionaries were widely used considering that students are now using more advanced technology. The teachers strongly supported the dictionary project and Rotary’s donation of the books indicating that they are used every day in their classrooms and students love them.

One of Rotary’s goals is to support education, a goal “to strengthen the capacity of communities to support basic education and literacy, reduce gender disparity in education, and increase adult literacy.” The Dictionary Project is one way to support education for all children and literacy for children and adults. In a time when many use technology in place of hard-copy books it is rewarding to give each third grade student their own dictionary to use and explore!