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I saw recently where Independence County, due to the efforts of members of a local service organization is among a handful of Arkansas counties with 100% coverage in a key literacy metric: distribution of dictionaries to elementary school students. The Rotary Club of Batesville has distributed more than 350 dictionaries to 3rd grade students in Independence County schools encompassing the Batesville, Cedar Ridge, Midland and Southside school districts in the current school year. The books were distributed in collaboration with The Dictionary Project, a South Carolina non-profit organization that has worked with individuals and groups to distribute more than 37 million dictionaries nationwide since its founding. I am not a Rotary member but can attest to the significance of the Independence County group's contribution. The Arkansas Policy Foundation, founded by business leaders in Little Rock in 1995 has distributed dictionaries through the Project for two decades, with emphasis on Arkansas' Delta region. Only a handful of Arkansas' 75 counties have

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the citizen infrastructure to achieve 100 percent coverage. In the 2024-25 school year, these are Bradley, Calhoun, Cleburne, Dallas, Independence, Lafayette, Madison, and St. Francis counties.

Thanks to Batesville Rotary members, Independence County has achieved 100 percent coverage in multiple years in the last decade, Project records show. Service groups have distributed 11,544 dictionaries across Arkansas in the current school year, or 21 percent of 3rd grade students. Literacy experts consider 3rd grade a key year between learning to read and reading to learn. Project Director Mary French notes children who learn to read are likely to be literate as adults.

The Policy Foundation hosted a 2022 forum, 'The Role of Dictionaries in Advancing Literacy' at Lyon College in Batesville. Assistant Professor of Elementary Education Dr.

Karin Brown noted print dictionaries can be especially important in rural Arkansas.

Many public schools have access to technology including online dictionaries, but coverage is not universal in every district. The bigger picture is that Arkansas isn't 48th or 49th. We've been in the Top 10 in the United States in this charitable metric in recent years, thanks to the efforts of service organizations such as Batesville Rotary and other engaged citizens. [ Editor’s Note: While there’s certainly nothing wrong with giving kids dictionaries, I feel like you might be overstating the value of such an endeavor a little. I mean, most kids these days just use their phones to look up the spellings and definitions of words. I see this as similar to giving kids calculators to help with their math. I could be wrong but to me the ubiquitous nature of cell phones these days has largely rendered these once valuable tools kind of redundant]