Kiwanis Club ensures Combs School District is rife with lexicons

 In February the Kiwanis Club of Queen Creek presented every third grader in the J.O. Combs Unified School district with a new dictionary as part of the Dictionary Project.
The goal of the project is to assist all students in becoming better writers, active readers, creative thinkers and resourceful learners by providing them with their own personal dictionary. The dictionaries are a gift to each student to use at school and at home for years to come.

Since its implementation in 1995, over 14 million children have received dictionaries because thousands of people saw the same need in communities all over the United States.

After The Wall Street Journal published a story about the project in March 2002, the Dictionary Project took on a national purpose and expanded its mission to include students in the 50 United States. The program is typically implemented in the third grade each year, since this is the age at which dictionary skills are usually taught. Educators describe third grade as the time when a student transitions from learning to read to reading to learn.

With the support of local sponsors and volunteers, like the Kiwanis Club, the Project hopes to provide a dictionary to every third grader in the United States to help them improve their reading and writing abilities and make the most of their education. Many of the sponsors are even taking the Dictionary Project beyond the United States, to help improve literacy worldwide.

Since its implementation in 1995, over 14 million children have received dictionaries. The J.O. Combs Unified School District thanks the Kiwanis Club of Queen Creek and their representatives Maria Silva and Bob Whaley.