Rotary dictionary program comes to Horizon

Kid Dictionary with John Stamos

Photo by Trisha Walker. Rotary Club Dictionary Program Chair Paul Crowley hands out free dictionaries in Jared Nagreens fourth and fifth grade Horizon classroom Tuesday morning. Crowley then led them through exercises to teach them how to navigate their new books.

A tradition that has spanned the past 20 years continued at Horizon Christian School on Tuesday morning.

Paul Crowley, chair of Hood River Rotary Clubs dictionary program, handed out dictionaries to fourth and fifth graders in Jared Nagreens classroom, as representatives have in all the countys schools this year. The club distributes free dictionaries to fifth graders, with the exception of Cascade Locks and Horizon schools, who have blended classrooms. In those schools, fourth graders receive the dictionaries, as do any new fifth graders, so everyone has the same learning tools.

The program was started by Rotary member d**k Lamm, now deceased, who had learned of a similar program run by the West Salem Rotary. Its now a pretty regular component of all Rotary clubs, Crowley said. In Hood River County, each school has representatives who handle the passing out of the new dictionaries.

During his presentation, Crowley talked about Rotary and its mission to end polio and how only two countries worldwide have not eradicated the disease and then helped students navigate their new books by showing them how to look up words.

The program has been going on so long that many former students remember receiving their own dictionaries. When Nagreen told his wife, Alyssa Jensen, a 2009 Horizon grad, about Crowleys visit that morning, She said, I remember when he came when I was in fifth grade! Nagreen said.

Source: http://www.hoodrivernews.com/news/2016/jan/06/rotary-dictionary-program-comes-horizon/