Rotarians in Union County are continuing their efforts to give every child the most vital tool in learning how to read — a dictionary.

Again this school year, the five Union County Rotary clubs gave a dictionary to all 3,262 third graders in the 25 local elementary schools. It was the third year of the effort.

Caroline Twiggs, community service chair of the Monroe breakfast club coordinated the program. It was a logical assignment, given her day job at community service director at Wingate University. Other clubs involved were Monroe lunch, Marshville, Waxhaw and Union West.

The five clubs split the $3,500 cost of the project. That covered the total cost of books, each of which was emblozned with a Rotary sticker. About 100 Rotarians representing all five clubs took part in a coordinated presentation of the dictionaries last November 16. The volunteers received a script to conduct a 15-minute program in each third grade classroom. They explained the structure of the dictionary and its use, played a word finding game, and talked about Rotary. Student were instructed to write their names in the front of the book and to take it home to use when reading away from school.

The clubs involved hope their effort will reinforce the importance of studying language and spelling, and thereby improve the relatively low literacy rate in Union County. The county Literacy Council reports that residents include more than 20,000 illiterate and low-literate adults. In addition, the Union County Public Schools’ Home Language Survey revealed that nearly 4,000 of the district’s students reported speaking one of 43 non-English languages in their homes.

Twiggs noted that school children often express their appreciation for the program with letters to the clubs. She said, “Our club received dozens of handwritten thank you notes from the students, each stating that they will use the dictionaries every day! One student wrote, ‘I have already used this dictionary for this thank you note!’”