The Artesia Rotary Club is in progress of passing out hundreds of dictionaries to local elementary students. The dictionaries are the 2019 edition of the Scholastic Children’s Dictionary and have a bright green cover. According to the publisher’s website:

 

This large, colorful dictionary was updated in 2019 and invites hours of browsing! The main entry words are set in red type, so they’re easy to find. All entries are labeled with the parts of speech and include concise definitions that are easy for kids to understand. Other features (which vary by entry) include: pronunciation helps, cross-references, sample sentences, usage labels, homophones, and related words/word forms. Every page has colorful captioned photos and illustrations that provide visual examples of some of the entries. Interesting language tip boxes appear throughout the dictionary, describing word origins and usage information. Changes in the most current 2019 edition include additional “modern vernacular” according to the publisher, including words like “mosh pit” and “chat room.”

 

On Tuesday, Rotarians Chris Simons, Ben Harvey, Robin Acosta, and George Adams were all on hand at Yeso Elementary to pass out the dense tomes and then walk the youth through the process of looking up a few words. The Rotarians practiced the important skill of alphabetical searching. One of the words searched in the dictionaries was “polio.” Once the word was found, the students of 3rd and 4th grade read aloud the definition of the word, “an infectious disease especially of young children that is caused by the poliovirus.” 

 

The goals of this Rotary initiative to put a dictionary in the hands of students include promoting educational curiosity and a sense of independence in students because they have a way to search well-researched information on their own.