Bingo! Third-graders get dictionaries

BURBANK ? Third-graders across the Burbank Unified School District left school on Friday one book heavier.

The Burbank Elks Lodge provided each third-grader with a new, blue student dictionary to use in school and at home ? a book that will help them explore words, planets and even a comprehensive list of national flags.

For all this, the students have bingo to thank.

“People don’t know why we’re playing bingo,” said Charlene Peale, who worked to raise the money through the Burbank Elk’s Lodge’s Monday-night bingo games. “All of that money goes back to buying library books or supporting our Boy Scout troup.”

Peale and other members of the Elks Lodge resurrected bingo after a nearly six-year hiatus in order to fund the purchase of more than 1,100 student dictionaries geared toward third-graders.

“We usually don’t get things that the kids can keep,” said Joel Shapiro, assistant superintendent of instructional services.

In books they can own and keep, students are free to highlight words of interest, tag pages and write additional information in the margins, Shapiro said.

The push to provide the dictionaries to third-graders came from a national Elks Lodge program, Peale explained.

“Elks clubs across the nation are trying to do the same thing,” she said. “We’re all trying to put dictionaries in the hands of students.”

The club first had to get the dictionary they would be distributing to the students approved by the Burbank Unified School District Board of Education. Once approved, the Elks looked to raising money and resurrecting bingo.

“It’s all word of mouth,” Peale said. “We have to get people knowing that we’re doing (bingo).”

The Elks chose to support third-graders with the belief that the third grade is the first year students really start needing it.

“We learned to use dictionaries in second grade,” said 8-year-old Brandyn Barillas, flipping over his new dictionary. “This is going to take me years to finish.”

The dictionaries selected will also serve the students for a few years, said third-grade teacher Kate Scanlan.

“The children’s dictionaries we have are often limited,” Scanlan said. “The adult dictionaries we have here are huge and it’s not like we can have kids cart them back and forth.”

Elena Lopez, 8, plans to keep her dictionary with her at school and at home.