Rotary donates dictionaries

DAVE BENJAMIN Pupils at the Switlik School make good use of the dictionaries that were donated by the Jackson Rotary Club.

JACKSON - Pupils at the Switlik School recently received their own dictionary from the Jackson Rotary Club.

"We look for projects to get involved in," said Jackson Rotary Club President Patrick McGoohan. "Projects where there might be a need."

In presenting the dictionaries to third-graders in Donna Scattergood's class, McGoohan said, "It is for your very own to take home and to stay with you throughout the school year and [to be used throughout] your school career."

McGoohan thumbed through a dictionary as the children followed along. He noted that each dictionary has a table of contents, a listing of each state and its capital, maps of the world, information about planets, sign language and rules for punctuation, in addition to the meaning of each of the different parts of speech.

He said he hoped the dictionaries will help the youngsters improve their writing and communication skills. He then noted that the longest word in the dictionary is a chemical formula name with 1,909 letters.

"Maybe one day one of these students will be a scientist and come back and tell us what that is," McGoohan said.

"We're going to use the dictionaries in class," Scattergood said. "We use dictionaries to help with ABC order, to locate guide words, to help with pronunciation, grammar and writing."

Brett Pardun, 8, said he will use his dictionary to look up words and find out what they mean.

"I use it to find out words and stuff like that," said Brett. "Like the meaning."

Katelyn Loftus, 8, said "We look for words and we write their meaning and the page it's on. You can see if it's a noun or a verb. A verb is what you do."

Katelyn said she uses a dictionary when she writes a story.

"It helps me spell words that I need help on," she said. "It helps with the meaning.

Katelyn said she plans to take her dictionary home and bring it back to class to use every day.

- Dave Benjamin