For almost 20 years, the Rocky River Rotary Club has been honoring a commitment to literacy in local schools with an annual dictionary donation to third-grade students at Kensington Intermediate School. Through the partnership, every third-grade student in the school receives a dictionary during a festive, in-class ceremony on one special day of the school year. “It’s kind of like Christmas morning,” says Greg Murphy, communications specialist at the Rocky River City School District. “The kids get really excited.”
When the dictionaries arrive, teachers call on students individually to come to the front of the class to receive their gifts. “It’s a day that the kids really look forward to,” says Murphy. “They’re able to thumb through the dictionaries and see all the different things in there. In addition to the words, there are weights and measures, Roman numerals and the longest word in the English dictionary, which takes up a whole page.”
The partnership launched in 2005 and has become a cherished tradition for local students, as well as an invaluable resource for young learners. “Third grade is a time when you start learning more and more,” says Murphy — in other words, the perfect time to expand a child’s vocabulary and expose them to the vast possibilities of the English language.
