Family donates dictionaries for third-graders

WASHINGTON — Every year since 2005, Yaro and Mary Chmelar have given every third-grader in a handful of Washington County schools a dictionary of their own. The tradition started with a gift to their granddaughter the same year.

“That was the year, we were talking about Christmas gifts and we decided … with this same dictionary, that we’d give it to our granddaughter,” Yaro Chmelar said. “She had never had her own book and she was really proud of it. So we decided to do that with the third grade here in Washington County.”

The couple donates the books to students at St. James and Lincoln Elementary, and home-schoolers in the Washington district, a number that varies every year but comes to a total of 2,900.

The books have one string attached: they must be shared with family members.

“That’s all they have to do,” Mary Chmelar said. “It’s their book and they have it for their own, but they need to share it if their brothers and sisters or their parents want to use it.”

Mary Chmelar said aimed to, “promote literacy,” two words they have the students look up when the receive the books.

“These are skills that they take into adulthood and they have to have,” she said. “It’s kind of a community project for us … it’s an important skill, and the teachers are right there and they can teach them how to use them.”

Teachers say the gift absolutely accomplishes that goal.

“They want to promote literacy and that’s exactly what they did,” Lincoln third grade teacher Alicia Andrews said. “The read them every chance they possibly could … third-graders always look forward to that special day, so we really appreciate the Chmelar family and their generous donation.”

It’s also a gratifying job: Yaro said he was often stopped by the family members of children in town, and Mary said the appreciation was evident in the moment.

"They’re so darn cute, they line up, each one gets their book, and then they go back to where they were sitting down,“ she said. ”They sit down cross-legged and they just start looking at that book. You can just tell that they’re really anxious to get into it, and see what there is for them to find out.“

Mary Chmelar, a former reading teacher herself, said third grade was the best time for kids to receive the dictionaries, a major turning point in their literary skills.

“That’s when they know, they have reading skills and they need to look things up in their school work,” she said. “That’s when they’re ready for it, that’s when they have the need.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com