Rotary provides new dictionaries for students

Sisters Rotary Club President Steve Auerbach and member Michael Richards presented the third-graders at Sisters Elementary School with dictionaries last Thursday morning. The age-appropriate volumes, also given to students at Black Butte School and Sisters Christian Academy, should serve the children until they are in eighth grade.

The Rotary Club is involved through a larger organization called The Dictionary Project, which many service clubs across the world support. The goal, according to the Dictionary Project website, is to assist all students in becoming good writers, active readers, creative thinkers, and resourceful learners by providing them with their own personal dictionary.

Auerbach began by asking the students questions about the father of the modern dictionary, Noah Webster. It took several tries before someone guessed that it took Webster 27 years to pen the first volume of his famous Webster's Modern Dictionary.

They correctly surmised that the dictionaries would be useful for doing projects and figuring out correct pronunciation, spelling and definitions of many, many words.

The students spent a few moments intently studying their new books before filing out of the elementary school gymnasium and back into their day.