On Wednesday, November 12th, the Rotary Club of Fallon personally delivered dictionaries to 3rd graders at the Veritas Preparatory School. The Rotary Club does this every year to give back to the community. This event is special because each kid gets their own dictionary to take home and keep. Priscilla Baker, Zip Upham, Daniel Babiarz, and Steve Ranson all participated in making this event possible.
To start, Priscilla explained to the students what the Rotary Club of Fallon is and what it does. She explained that the little club in Fallon is part of a large worldwide organization, Rotary International. The international club works on significant issues, such as eradicating polio and vaccinating people against it, and providing water to people in need. The Rotary Club of Fallon is a service organization that helps the community. They have built benches, installed a shade awning at the cottage school for the Parks and Rec programs, and completed many other projects.
Zip Upham then gave a short presentation to the 3rd graders and walked the kids through their new dictionaries. He explained that a dictionary is used to look up words and find out what they mean. He also noted that you can find the pronunciation of words in the dictionary as well.
To practice, the students looked up the word “facetious”. They started with the first letter, then the second, and sounded out the spelling until one student found the word. He read off the definition, “Joking, sportive, not serious.” Upham mentioned that when looking up difficult words like this one, it’s ok to ask someone for help.
Students then turned to the back of the dictionary to find other information. In the very back of the book, there were two pages displaying American Sign Language and Braille. Upham explained to these students that Braille is a language for people who are blind; it is an alphabet made up of little bumps, and you read it with your fingertips. Students then looked through the back of the book and found pages that interested them. They pointed out pages displaying countries, states, planets, roman numerals, and more. The most notable of these to the third graders was the page with a multiplication table. Upham emphasized to students the usefulness of this dictionary by saying, “The whole back of this book is designed to be a reference library in case you have to answer questions.”
The Rotary Club of Fallon noted the importance of learning to read and stated, “Bringing the book home will enable the student to learn more quickly because their education won’t be confined to the classroom.” Priscilla noted how much fun the students have looking through these books, saying, “They all light up.”
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