| Rotary
Donates Dictionaries to School |
By Leslie Perales
Observer Staff Writer |
| Thanks to the Rotary Club of Reston about 100 third-grade
students at Dogwood Elementary School have received two new
dictionaries. The students received the English and Spanish-English
dictionaries March 14 as part of the Rotary Club's participation
in the Dictionary Project, which has given away more than
7.4 million dictionaries worldwide. The club hopes to provide
dictionaries to all elementary schools in the South Lakes
High School pyramid. |
| The dictionaries came as a surprise to students, as members
of the Rotary Club and Assistant Principal Bill Vardeman handed
them out. Vardeman explained the usefulness of the dictionaries
to the students. "Did you know that there are seven definitions
for the word 'in'," he asked. "I didn't know that." |
| After the students were told they could keep the dictionaries,
they whispered and talked about how it was "so cool" as they
wrote their names inside the books. One student said, "Now
people can learn how to speak Spanish," after receiving his
dictionaries. Rotary Club members received a round of applause
from the students after the presentation. |
| Students in Rachael Piro's class showed the Rotary Club
members that they could put their new dictionaries to use
on their Writer's Celebration projects. Vardeman said the
Writer's Celebration is a workshop in which each third-grade
class participated, and the students worked on special writing
projects such as biographies, research projects and "how to"
pieces as part of the workshop. |
| Vardeman said it is exciting for the children to be able
to have something that is their own that they can take pride
in. He also said the Dictionary Project was a good way to
showcase some of the good things that are happening in the
school. "It's always great to have community support for Dogwood
and the students here," Vardeman said. |
| J.D. Von Pischke, who serves as chairman for the project
for the rotary, said the group is taking part in the Dictionary
Project because of the importance of reading and because many
other Rotary Clubs have participated. He said it was enjoyable
to see the students' reactions. |
| "They liked it a lot," Von Pischke said. "They were surprised
and happy." |
| March is Literacy Month for Rotary International and last
year 1,691 clubs participated in the Dictionary Project, donating
more than 1.1 million books. According to the Dictionary Project,
educators view the third grade as the "dividing line between
learning to read and reading to learn." During the 2007-2008
school year more than 18,000 dictionaries were donated in
Virginia, and 1,449 were donated in Fairfax County. |
