Congin School third-grader Sierra Cameron is a big fan of the dictionary she received this year. She said it’s much better than the old dictionaries she used to have to use at the school. And the best part is, she gets to keep it.

Cameron and her classmates in third grade at Congin have each received their own dictionary, donated by Verizon TelecomPioneers, a volunteer group of active and retired Verizon employees.

The Pioneer organization donated approximately 135 dictionaries to the third-graders and their teachers at Congin School this year as part of a national program to promote literacy.

“Reading is one of our primary focuses,” said Pioneer representative Barbara Profenno.

Cameron and her third-grade classmates used the dictionaries all year to look up words, but also for lots of other uses. According to their teachers, the dictionaries, which the students keep in their desks, get a lot of use.

“I think that you can tell that they’ve been using them,” Linda Worster, Congin literacy specialist, said Tuesday, when representatives from the Pioneer organization were visiting the school.

“Instead of telling one or two meanings, they told a lot,” said Cameron. “They’re better than the old ones. We use them every day.”

Profenno and fellow representatives Betsi Dupont and Mary McCarthy of Verizon TelecomPioneers stopped by for about an hour on Tuesday to get a big thank you from the third-graders.

“I liked how they had Braille and sign language,” said third-grader Mikayla Lewey. “We used them for math. We used them every day.”

Not only do the dictionaries give definitions to words, but they also serve as reference tools for information including other languages, numerals, geography, and history. “They’re using them not just as dictionaries but as reference books,” said Worster.

The organization purchased the dictionaries at cost for under $2 apiece for the sole purpose of donating them to third-graders across the state of Maine. This is the first year that Congin School has received the donations.

The teachers at Congin were thrilled. “With budget cuts, we’re not able to give each student their own dictionary,” said Worster.