As Pearl Rotary prepares to join a second year in the District 5100 Dictionary Project, a third-grade teacher whose class received Rotary dictionary/almanacs last year strongly endorses the program. Objective of the Project last year was to get the dictionaries in the hands of all third graders in public schools located in our Rotary District.
Anna Sapienza, third-grade teacher at Portland’s alternative K-12 school, Metropolitan Learning Center, located in NW Portland, e-mailed Pearl Rotary in support of continuing the Project, and had this to say:
It is great “to hear the news that you are planning to repeat the dictionary project. What an undertaking it must be! The kids absolutely loved receiving their own dictionary….to keep.
“For me, it was very helpful to have a complete set of the same dictionaries for us on assignments. We have lots of old partial sets but when we do specific dictionary skills assignments or word work it is much easier when we are working out of the same book,” Sapienza said.
“What is great is that last year’s students are now fourth graders and they each have a home dictionary,” the teacher said. “It would be amazing if the Rotary Club were able to continue this project because eventually every student, third grade and up, would have a dictionary to use for the years ahead.”
Ms. Sapienza added: “As I am sure you are aware, Portland Public Schools has a tight budget and personal dictionaries are certainly not part of it. Although most families at my school probably have a home dictionary, many families from lower income schools would not. I feel it is especially important to get to those children first!”