Preventing the summer slide in learning

In junior high school many years ago, a teacher told her advanced English class that “if you can read, you can rule the world.”

She had her smarter students reading Shakespeare and Eugene O’Neill and used comic books to kick-start the reading of students less academically inclined.

Ruling the world isn’t the goal of the new summer reading program collaboration between the Lawrence school district and Peninsula Public Library, however getting kids to read and making them lifelong readers is the objective.

Motivating children to read during the summer isn’t easy — who doesn’t want to kick back and relax after 10 months of reading textbooks — but educators view reading as vital to learning.

“As I’ve expressed to both parents and students, reading is the foundation of all learning,” said Jennifer Vitale, the ELA and Social Studies chairwoman at Lawrence Middle School. “The more one reads, the better one reads. Reading exposes one to experiences and ideas and opens up the imagination. Reading helps one to become a citizen of the world and to be come a more well-rounded person.”

This year’s program “Dream Big! Read,” has a contest attached to it where students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade are expected to keep a log of the number of pages they read. When the students return to school in September, the teachers will collect the logs and it will count as a quiz grade at every grade level. The student in each grade with the most pages read will be rewarded with a Kindle from the district and a Nook from the library. PPL will also present weekly prizes.

During the three-hour Wednesday program at the middle school from 9 a.m. to noon, the students can exchange books, participate in small book clubs and discussion groups and work on their reading logs. The library will also have activities throughout the summer.