Breckenridge Rotary Club promotes literacy with dictionary giveaway at South Elementary
By Carla McKeown/Breckenridge Texan
Last week, several members of the Rotary Club of Breckenridge visited South Elementary and presented a small gift to every third-grade student.
The kids were thrilled: “You mean we get to keep these?” “Can I take it home?” “Oh, my gosh!”
A student in Angie Brown’s third-grade class reacts to finding the longest word in the dictionary. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)
The gifts were simple — no screens; no batteries to charge; nothing to plug in; no lights, bells or whistles.
They were excited to get their very own copy of “A Student’s Dictionary,” an old-fashioned, printed-on-paper book. The students immediately wrote their names inside the front cover and then began to peruse the pages.
On Wednesday, Feb. 4, local Rotary Club members Sherry Strickland, Jessica Sutter, Mercedes Luna, Yuri Huntington and Monica Johnson handed out the dictionaries, while fellow Rotarian Les Strickland talked to the kids about the books.
“To call this just a dictionary is an understatement,” he said. “There’s words, but there’s so much other information in here. There’s sign language, information about the planets, the Constitution, the presidents.”
In each of the four third-grade classrooms, Les Strickland asked the students what they thought the longest word is. Many kids answered “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from the movie “Mary Poppins.” Strickland acknowledged their good guesses and then pointed them to page 373 of their new dictionaries. There, they found the 1,909-letter word that is the chemical name for Tryptophan synthetase, an enzyme/protein containing 267 amino acids.
Strickland also helped the students figure out who was president the year they were born and encouraged them to explore the dictionaries for other interesting bits of information.
The Breckenridge Rotary Club purchases the dictionaries for third graders each year through Rotary International as part of Rotary’s literacy initiative.
Rotarian Jessica Sutter points out various aspects of “A Student’s Dictionary” to students in Lori Durham’s class on Wednesday, Feb. 4. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)
Yuri Huntington, former president of the Breckenridge Rotary Club, helps a couple of third-graders look up the longest word in the dictionary. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)
Breckenridge Rotary Club member Monica Johnson helps students in Rhonda Martin’s class get acquainted with their new dictionaries. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)
Sherry and Les Strickland shows students in Zoe Cooper’s class some of the interesting things they can find in their copies of “A Student’s Dictionary.” (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)
Cutline, top photo: Rotary Club member Mercedes Luna hands out dictionaries in Angie Brown’s classroom on Wednesday, Feb. 4. The Rotary Club of Breckenridge gives copies of “A Student’s Dictionary” to local third-grade students each year as part of the organization’s focus on education. Click here to see more photos from Wednesday. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)
