CRESTVIEW — Riverside Elementary School third-grader Colby Hill flipped through his new dictionary and found something he said he will use for years to come: an American Sign Language guide.
“Our teachers said if your ears stop working we can use it to talk,” Colby said. He is one of almost 900 North Okaloosa County third-graders to receive a free dictionary this year from the Crestview Rotary International Club. Distribution began last week and continues through Wednesday.
This is the eighth year the civic organization has distributed the books, which, for some students from low-income families, is their only personal book, Rotarian Tim Bryant said.
Educators look forward to the annual dictionary handout and incorporating it into their curriculum, which so far has resulted in more than 8,500 books distributed to area third-graders.
“We are using them as we learn dictionary skills like alphabetical order,” Riverside third-grade teacher Pam Moseley said. “We’ll use it for guide words and parts of speech.”
Teacher Bailey Edwards said her class regularly uses the book to look up vocabulary words. “They’ll ask me how to spell something and I’ll say, ‘Do I look like a dictionary?’” she said, and refers them to their new book.
Crestview Rotarians also distribute copies of the U.S. Constitution to area seventh-graders.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview Rotary Club delivers almost 900 dictionaries to area third-graders