SAN FRANCISCO, March 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The California Dictionary Project (CDP) (www.dictionariesforkids.org), a non-profit organization that donates dictionaries annually to third grade students in California`s public school system, and San Francisco School Volunteers, (SFSV) (www.sfsv.org) a non- profit organization that recruits and trains volunteers to help students in San Francisco schools, announced its latest round of distribution of 4,900 free dictionaries in San Francisco. Funded in part by donations from law firms Cooley Godward; Morrison & Foerster; Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the CDP will distribute its next round of dictionaries on Friday, March 12 at Charles R. Drew Elementary in San Francisco`s Bayview district. The distribution will take place from 10-11:30 a.m. with a classroom visit and interactive sessions hosted by the CDP, SFSV and SFUSD officials.

The San Francisco distribution marks the CDP`s second annual collaboration with SFSV to give dictionaries to public school third graders in San Francisco, bringing the total amount of free dictionaries distributed by the non-profit to 26,000 since October of 2002. Third grade students in Oakland and San Jose have also benefited from the annual donations, which the CDP initiated to help improve California`s below-average literacy rates.

SFSV has recruited and trained over 100 volunteers to lead a short lesson in how to use the dictionary when they give them out to the children. Volunteers for dictionary distributions throughout the San Francisco Unified School district include Assemblyman Mark Leno; Supervisors Fiona Ma, Jake McGoldrick, Aaron Peskin, and Chris Daly; Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White and Police Chief Heather Fong, as well as a host of civic leaders, corporate partners and school volunteers. For many San Francisco school children, the dictionary is the first book that they own. The excitement on the children`s faces when they realize that the dictionary is theirs to use and keep brings home the importance of this project in aiding literacy efforts in the schools,` said Alan Lessik, Executive Director of SFSV.

`We`re very pleased to welcome the California Dictionary Project into our third grade classrooms. The efforts of the donors and volunteers involved embody a spirit of giving and a quest for learning that are very valuable to our students,` said Arlene Ackerman, Superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District.

Touting the motto, `Today a reader, tomorrow a leader,` the CDP views dictionaries as perhaps the first and most powerful reference and active educational tool that a child should own. Across California, 53 percent of third graders currently read below national grade level.

`As the California Dictionary Project continues to gain momentum in the Bay Area, we are looking forward to engaging with this year`s class of third grade kids,` said Mark Robinson, president of the California Dictionary Project. `The excitement of the students and the potential for learning that the dictionaries generate are things that the students keep with them far beyond the day they receive the books.`

The founders of the CDP were inspired to create the organization as a result of the work by Mary French, a South Carolina woman that began a non- profit to buy dictionaries for every third grade student (www.dictionaryproject.org). Her efforts have been the basis of similar programs in more than forty states.

As funding for the organization grows, the CDP expects to expand beyond the Bay Area to other parts of California in the coming years.

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