Destinie Stringer proudly held onto her new dictionary, a smile illuminating her small face.
“It has my name in it,” the third grader said to her friend Catera Anderson, who also held open a brand new dictionary.
Nearby, Taya Ferguson pointed out the longest word in the dictionary to her friends, Alexis Carter and Jonathon Savka. The mega-syllabic word took up the full last page of the paperback books presented Friday to the youths at Whittier Primary School.
The books were a gift from the Rotary Club of Peoria North, which this week provided dictionaries to every third grade student — about 1,100 kids in all — in Peoria School District 150.
“I think it’s really cool. I’ve never had a dictionary, at least not one this big before,” Taya said as she continued to search the book for new and interesting words to impress her classmates.
This is the second-year the Rotary Club has provided dictionaries to Peoria school children. The books were funded by a combination of contributions by Rotary members and a grant from the Rotary International Foundation.
“One of Rotary’s major emphasis is literacy. A lot of Rotarys do dictionary giveaways to students,” said Ron Riggins, a member of Rotary Club of Peoria North’s dictionary committee and a past club president. “We truly hope this will help the kids through their school years to improve their spelling, writing and vocabulary.”
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