June 10, 2003
SYRACUSE---The New York State Library's 2003 Summer Reading Program encourages kids to draw upon their inner creativity in many forms. Picture This, Imagine That — Read!, for kindergarteners through fifth graders, and Passport to Reading, for teens, launch Monday, June 23, throughout the Onondaga County Public Library system. The programs help young readers explore the relationship between verbal and visual images. The six-week program uses literature and the creative arts to inspire children to read—especially reluctant readers.
Children who read during the summer months do better in school the following fall, an advantage that continues to grow through their school careers, studies show. Reading as few as six books through summer can make the difference between keeping up or falling behind.*
But kids who most need to read are often the ones who don't. OCPL hopes to reach those kids with this year's summer reading program, which offers a wide range of fun and stimulating activities to draw children into the world of creative expression, including the written word:
· performances of music, magic, puppets, science experiments and historical re-enactments
· arts and crafts activities
· story times and storytelling aimed at different age levels
· opportunities for kids to talk with others about what they read
· visits from local sports figures
· incentives to encourage reading and prizes to reward progress.
Look at some of the programs to stimulate children's creative juices, planned in city branches and suburban libraries: Liverpool, Cicero and North Syracuse libraries will offer Operation S.M.A.R.T., a program to help girls ages 10 to 15 explore the world around them. Children at White Branch will learn how to make marbling paper, African rain sticks, and clay pens. Nancy Sander and her “Puppets with Pizazz” will bring “The Man Who Kept House” to many libraries. Central Library will present the Spoon Man for a hilarious and “stirring” high-participation show. Baldwinsville will sponsor a drama camp and a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament. Clowns, singers, and musicians traipse through the libraries' summer calendars.
Anchoring this arts-focused programming are the reading clubs. After signing up at their local library for Picture This, Imagine That—Read! elementary schoolchildren can begin reading, writing book reviews, and reporting to their librarian or a reading group on their favorite books. Over six weeks, they build a portfolio that helps them win rewards and incentive prizes, such as pencils, journals, tattoos, stickers, kaleidoscopes, and sports tickets. Teens also register at their neighborhood library for Passport to Reading. After reading a book, magazine or newspaper, they report to a librarian, who then “stamps” the student's passport. Readers progress from one destination to another, making them eligible for incentives and prizes.
A second goal of the summer reading program is to acquaint young people with the library's vast resources they can use all year. Besides books, videos, DVDs, and CDs, there are reference books and online databases, computer classes, e-mail and Internet access, magazines, and more. Most important, libraries have librarians who can help children find what they need. OCPL librarians can be reached in person, by telephone, and by e-mail or 24-7 virtual reference.
For children to enjoy reading, it's important that they succeed at it. Librarians can help with reading suggestions appropriate for individual readers' interests and abilities. Preschoolers and kindergarteners might enjoy Maxwell's Magic Mix-up, in which author Linda Ashman uses rhyme to tell the story of a inexperienced magician who turns the birthday girl into a rock and her guests into animals. Nina Laden weaves the lives of artists Matisse and Picasso into the story of a talented pig and an artistic bull who deal with conflict by building fences that become art masterpieces in When Pigasso Met Mootisse. For elementary readers, Eileen Christelow depicts two illustrators going through all the steps involved in creating a picturebook, including layout, scale, and point-of-view, in What Do Illustrators Do? Holly George-Warren inspires music lovers with the true-life stories of rock musicians in Shake, Rattle & Roll: The Founders of Rock & Roll. And Jane Yolen helps readers put words to images with her whimsical journey through nature's landscape in Color Me a Rhyme: Nature Poems for Young Readers.
Participation in summer reading programs is free and open to all. For more information about registration, program details and events, visit your local library or call 435-1900. Maps to each library and event listings can be found on the OCPL Web site. Come and enjoy a summer of creativity in the arts—drawing, painting, singing, dancing, acting, laughing, and thinking, as well as writing and reading. Kids connect to creativity @ your library!
###
The New York State Library Web site . Also, check out www.summerreadingnys.org for books, games, images, etc.
* Ann McGill-Franzen and Richard Allington, “Bridging the Summer Reading Gap,” Instructor, May-June 2003. More information about “summer reading loss” and solutions for it can be found in articles by Gerald W. Bracey in Phi Delta Kappan, March 2002 and September 2002. All these articles can be found in the Gale General Reference Center Gold database online at OCPL.
|
|
|
|
