Students find the right word
thanks to Rotarians
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
ROTARIAN NANCY FLETCHER helps Riley Simmons, a third-grader at Zippel Elementary School, find a word in his new thesaurus that was donated by the Presque Isle Rotary Club. For the fifth consecutive year, the Rotary Club has donated the books to third-graders at Zippel, Mapleton and Easton elementary schools. Rotarian Sharon Campbell, who spearheads the effort, said the Thesaurus Project helps improve the children’s vocabulary and shows them that “somebody besides their parents and their teachers thinks that learning and literacy are important.” Simmons is a student in Teresa Summerson’s class.
PRESQUE ISLE – Though its name may sound like that of a prehistoric dinosaur, third-graders at Zippel Elementary School learned last week just how valuable a tool a thesaurus can be.
Last Wednesday – for the fifth consecutive year – members of the Presque Isle Rotary Club donated thesauruses to third-graders at Zippel and Mapleton elementary schools. Students at Easton Elementary School will receive their books once school resumes following harvest recess.
“Five years ago I was president of the Presque Isle Rotary Club, and as all presidents do, I was looking at our goals for the year,” said Rotarian Sharon Campbell. “Rotary International asked us to do literacy projects in our local communities. Literacy throughout the world – including our own neighborhoods – is a foundation of Rotary International.
“I got the idea from an article in the Rotarian magazine where another club had purchased dictionaries for students,” she said. “After doing some research of our own school system, it was decided to provide thesauruses to the children. Our goal was to give them to the children, so they could take them to fourth and fifth grades and get the value of the book and the value of the message … that somebody besides their parents and their teachers thinks that learning and literacy are important.”
More than a dozen Rotarians volunteered to go into the classrooms and help deliver 160 books.
“We – as a club – are really good at raising money and we’re proud of that, but we don’t do a lot of hands-on projects,” said Campbell. “After doing this for the first time in 2006, our members asked, ‘Are we going to do this again?’ They were very excited about it and they could see that the kids were excited and that we were making a difference. Sometimes writing a check does not give you that same feeling, so based on the enthusiasm of our members, we’ve continued the project. It’s about a $1,200 investment, but it’s well worth it.
“The money comes from a Youth Fund that we maintain which receives funding from our annual auction,” she said. “We hope to continue this project because it reaches so many children. The teachers – every year – tell us that it makes a difference.”
Teacher Teresa Summerson said the third-graders love getting their own thesauruses.
“They have so much fun looking through it; we use it a lot in our writing and the children are always looking for a different way to say something rather than using the same word all the time. In our class discussion, I may say, ‘Give me another word for happy,’ and they whip the thesauruses out. We have some in our classroom, but now they have their own and they’re so pleased with that. They don’t have to put it back on a shelf; they can keep it in their desk.
“Having a thesaurus exposes them to more things and increases their vocabulary. From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, I notice that their vocabulary expands,” said Summerson. “The thesauruses are right at their fingertips; they don’t have to get up and go get a book. Throughout the week, the kids are constantly pulling out the thesaurus and saying, ‘Look at the word I found. Look at the word I found.’ They get excited about it, and many of this year’s fourth- and fifth-graders still have them in their classrooms.”
Student Aidan Johnson said it was “pretty cool” to receive his own thesaurus.
“I like that we get to keep it,” he said. “I’ll be able to use my thesaurus a lot. Whenever I’m writing things I’ll just open up to the page and figure out a different word to use so I don’t have to use the same one over and over.
“It was nice of the Rotary Club to give us the thesauruses, and it’s nice that they do things like clean up Mantle Lake. I usually go there on my bike a lot. It looks a lot better; they do a lot of good work.”
While she has many books at home, this is Emma Postell’s first thesaurus.
“We have a small dictionary at home, but I’ve never had a thesaurus before,” she said. “It will help me find new words.”
When asked to find another word for “rich,” Postell quickly flipped through the pages of her new thesaurus to find such words as “wealthy,” “comfortable,” “well-to-do,” “affluent” and “prosperous.”
“The thesaurus also has words in red that are the opposite,” she said. “The opposite of rich is poor.
“In Mrs. [Robertine] Morrow’s class, we have to write a story about someone; I’m writing about my best friend, Sophia,” Postell said. “Maybe I can use some words from my thesaurus to describe her.”
Campbell said the Thesaurus Project has created quite a buzz among area students.
“We’ve got a lot of kids talking about it … they have been waiting to be in third grade as their siblings have gotten a thesaurus along the way,” she said. “It also gets kids talking about Rotary which is great. It helps the kids understand about community service … it’s not just about parents and teachers wanting them to learn, it’s about the entire community being supportive of schools.”
JASON YORK, left, and Austin Plourde, third-graders in Teresa Summerson’s class at Zippel Elementary School, search for different words using their new thesauruses. Last Wednesday, the Presque Isle Rotary Club donated 160 thesauruses to third-graders at Zippel, Mapleton and Easton elementary schools. The books are for the students to keep, and will help improve their vocabulary during the school year.
