Salina Lion’s Club members donated 73 dictionaries to Salina Elementary School third graders this past week as part of the club’s national ‘Dictionary Project’. The program allows each student their own personal dictionary that not only contains the standard dictionary, but also biographies of the Presidents of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, and The Constitution of the United States, facts about the solar system, maps of the continents, information about each of the 50 states, and weights and measurements.
The nationwide organization ensures that each student has at least one book in their possession; for some children this may be the very first book that they have personally owned.
“The Salina Lion’s Club has been affiliated with this project for many years,” said coordinator Rodney Rasmussen. “We are excited to carry on this tradition and hope these dictionaries will be great tools in the education of these students.”
The Dictionary Project was created 25 years ago to improve literacy in South Carolina, which was ranked 50th in the Nation in reading comprehension. Since then, more than 33,700,000 students have received a dictionary in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, Caribbean Islands, Peru, the Philippines, Afghanistan, Nepal, and throughout Africa through this organization to help them learn and understand new words.
