All Long Beach Unified School District 3rd grade students are in for a treat! In the next few weeks, they will each receive a brand new dictionary/thesaurus to promote literacy and help them succeed in school.
This gift is made possible thanks to the Dictionary Days program, a partnership between the Long Beach Public Library Foundation and the Earl B. and Loraine H. Miller Foundation. Earlier this year we celebrated the 15th anniversary of Dictionary Days at the Los Altos Neighborhood Library. Check out the clip above featuring the festivities.
“The Miller Foundation is thrilled to celebrate fifteen years of Dictionary Days. By the end of 2018, this partnership between the Library Foundation and the Miller Foundation will have provided a dictionary to over 120,000 Long Beach Unified 3rd grade students. We especially enjoy giving this important gift during the holiday season, a gift that provides children with an educational tool which they can use throughout their schooling and beyond. In fact, we often hear from high school students who visit the library that they still have their Dictionary Days dictionary!” said Margaret Farwell Smith, an executive member of both the Long Beach Public Library Foundation Board of Directors and the Earl B. & Loraine H. Miller Foundation Board of Trustees.
According the Campaign for Grade Level Reading, when children enter the 4th grade, their lessons shift. Instead of learning to read, they read to learn. Reading proficiency is crucial during this age and a dictionary/thesaurus is a valuable tool to prepare students for more challenging school work.
