@ Your Library
Reading Takes You Everywhere! is the Summer Reading theme for 2018. We want everyone to join the summer reading program and spend twenty minutes a day reading all summer long! Register at internationalfallslibrary.readsquared.com.
Strong reading skills are linked to high school graduation rates and college enrollment rates. However, it’s not just struggling readers who could benefit from more reading practice. A study of the reading practices of more than 9.9 million students over the 2015–2016 school year found that more than half of the students read less than 15 minutes per day on average. Fewer than one in three read between 15 and 29 minutes and fewer than one in five students averaged a half-hour or more of reading per day.
The problem is that 15 minutes seems to be the “magic number” at which students start seeing substantial positive gains in reading achievement, yet less than half of our students are reading for that amount of time.
Summer is a usually a time of fewer commitments, so make it a priority this summer to build the habit of daily reading. That will make it easier to keep the habit when school and other activities make it harder to find time. If reading is viewed as enjoyable and seen as helping one sleep and more then it will also be easier to make the time to read daily when other activities compete for time.
Make the reading habit a family habit! Everyone is encouraged to register the days they read at least twenty minutes with kids under age 12 earning a free book every twenty days and teens and adults being allowed to select a book to be included in the library’s collection as well as be entered in monthly prize drawings. Kids learn by example, most parents know that the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ isn’t very effective as a teaching tool. So let your kids see you reading twenty minutes every day as well. You can read anything, read magazines, read westerns, science fiction, romances, non-fiction, or biographies. Read to learn something to change careers, move up in your career or to learn a new skill, start a new hobby. Read aloud together as a family, pick a childhood favorite, gather a selection of picture books each night, share the positive memories you have of reading with your children. Just read something each and every day this summer.
And definitely feel free to ask a staff member for recommended reading titles for any age. Library staff is here to help make your reading experience a positive one. There are also several reading lists on the library website at internationalfallslibrary.us as well as the readsquared site.
Register online at internationalfallslibrary.readsquared.com before June 15th and be eligible to win Mary Kay Andrew’s new book The High Tide Club. Join us next Wednesday, June 6 at 10:30am for a great family concert by Friction Farm, a husband and wife touring duo singing modern folk songs for all ages.