Casting a spell

If you need to check your spelling, just ask a third-grader.

More than 500 third-graders in Beverly are now, or soon will be, in possession of new dictionaries thanks to the Beverly Rotary Club. This is the fifth year in a row the Rotary has given out the books as part of the national Dictionary Project.

Rotary members handed out the dictionaries to all of the public school third-graders last week and will soon do the same at the city`s private schools, said the Rotary`s Alex Ushakoff, who runs CCI Reprographics on Cabot Street.

Ushakoff said studies show that third grade is an ideal time to put a dictionary in a student`s hand.

`It seems important that if you can make that dictionary their own property and they can keep it in their backpack or in their own desk, it would be extremely useful rather than a big dictionary on the table in the middle of the classroom,` he said.