LYNN — The Rotary Club of Lynn, with the support of the Reading Cooperative Bank (RCB), distributed 1,059 student dictionaries to third graders across Lynn Wednesday morning.
Smiles filled Callahan Elementary School teacher Bill Logue’s classroom Wednesday morning as rotarian and Interim Superintendent of Schools Deb Ruggiero and RCB CEO Julie Thurlow passed dictionaries to the classroom.
After asking the students to find the words “community” and “friend,” Ruggiero instructed the students to turn to the dictionary’s reference pages, where they recited information on state populations and American Sign Language (ASL).
This year marks the rotary club’s 15th annual Dictionary Project drive, funded through RCB. Since 2008, the Rotary Club of Lynn has presented over 19,000 dictionaries to third grade students in the Lynn Public Schools.
When asked what they liked most about their new dictionaries, most children said they liked the back reference pages. Third grade student Emily Santana, 8, said that she wanted to learn sign language so that she could communicate with deaf people.
“I want to learn sign language so that if I meet a person that can’t speak, I can speak to them with my hands,” Santana said.
Discussing the students’ enthusiasm toward learning ASL, Ruggiero said that the school district, in order to accommodate hearing impaired students, aims to develop an ASL class in the future.
“Kids are learning it. During recess, you’ll see this group of children teaching it to each other. It’s just evolving. This group of kids is going to end up in our middle schools or high schools, so we’re looking at starting an ASL world language class,” Ruggiero said.
Rotarian Jim Harris, who helped organize the original Lynn dictionary drive in 2008, distributed dictionaries at Ingalls Elementary Wednesday, as he does each year.
Harris said that year after year, many children get excited about the educational reference pages at the dictionary’s end. Some children, he said, were excited just to have their own book.
“In some cases, this might be the very first book that the child has ever owned. For some, their family might be in a financial situation where they can’t afford to buy their children books. So it’s exciting for them to get a book of their own,” Harris said.
Ruggiero echoed Harris’ remarks, adding that giving third grade students their own dictionaries motivates them to pursue knowledge and education.
“Every year, the third graders feel so special that they get their own dictionaries. They get excited about the different information they can learn within the book — not just about words, but the other stuff too,” Ruggiero said.
