A Dictionary of Their Own

It didn't take long for third-grader Bryan Holten to find a new word he liked in the dictionary: zygote.

His classmate Nicholas Elza had already bookmared the Periodic Table of Elements, just a few minutes after he received the brand new book.

At Westchester Elementary School on Thursday morning, every third grade student received a new dictionary, as part of a program co-funded by the Rotary Club of Catonsville-Sunrise and the Huntington Learning Center.

Students were then given a few lessons on how to find things in the dictionary and to use the reference pages.

The Dictionary Project is an international project by Rotary International to distribute free dictionaries to third-graders. The Catonsville rotary has been participating for a number of years. In 2005, the club distributed 500 dictionaries and this year will give out more than 1,200 dictionaries in 19 area schools.

This is the first year the Huntington Learning Center has partnered with the rotary, said Diana Gartland, managing director of the center.

"At this age, they have so many questions," said Gartland, who tries to give out dictionaries to students at the center if they don't have one already.

"This book has a lot of answers," she said.

Reading Teacher Katie Flint said she uses the dictionaries often in class to have the students look up their vocabulary words.

"They like books of any kind," she said. "They'll quiz each other at recess."