Library Summer Program rewards kids

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

A year ago, library staff at the Strathmore Municipal Library saw one kid in their summer program who struggled with ADHD.
This year, they noticed that his literacy was developing and he read the most in his age group and contributed to the many hours the kids read this summer.
Despite having low numbers, the 110 kids ages 3 to Grade 7, put in 450 hours more of reading over seven weeks, for a total 1,800 hours.
“We had kids coming in having read 23 hours a week,” said Rachel Dick-Hughes, director of library services for the Strathmore Municipal Library.
The summer reading program was put in place around 10 years ago to provide kids the opportunity to enhance their reading skills, running from the first day of summer vacation to the day they return to school ends.
“Part of that is because we had really great prizes donated by different businesses around town and we had substantial donations from the Lions that let us buy really good prizes,” said Dick-Hughes. “I think that helped motivate them. What really drives us, to motivate kids to read more over the summer, is so many studies have shown that kids fall back reading levels during the summer unless they’re reading.
“What we’re trying to do is help kids not fall back but get ahead, so that they’re starting September even better than they were in June.”
She added the program had helped kids find books they loved to read and not be limited by any specific reading level. In turn the staff noticed a rise in confidence throughout the summer as a result of reading more challenging books that they wouldn’t tackle during the school year.
Krystal Esau, who was a program coordinator for a third summer, enjoyed working with the kids to achieve their literacy goals and gave them a little extra motivation to succeed with prizes throughout the days.
Esau said parents related the kids comments such as, ‘we just finished,’ ‘we were reading so much this morning because we really wanted to make sure we got a prize.’
“We saw that really worked for a lot of kids, something really tangible, a small goal that they could really achieve in a week,” said Esau. “Often kids were getting up to three prizes a week.”
The program worked on bigger goals as well, awarding kids who read the most over the summer with a $125 gift card to Toys”R”Us.