Once upon a time, in the summer of 2020, everyone was stuck in their castle like Rapunzel with nothing to do. Until one day, June 15 arrived and the Oregon Talking Book & Braille Library Summer Reading Program began. The children were so excited to have something to pass the time and they began reading and winning prizes. Before everyone knew it, time had flown by as summer turned to fall. The children became so wrapped up in the stories they were reading that they didn’t even notice when it was time to be let out of their castles. For they had learned that they were never really stuck in one place at all because stories can take you anywhere you want to go. And the children read happily ever after.
The 2020 Summer Reading Program is here, and we invite you to sign up and join us for a fairy tale summer of reading! Don’t worry, not everything will be unicorns and rainbows. There will be plenty of action and adventure as you Imagine Your Story with us this summer.
Here are the Rules:
The Summer Reading Program (SRP) will run from June 15 to August 21, 2020 and is for students age 5-18 registered with the Talking Book and Braille Library.
- Participants must be registered users of the Oregon Talking Book & Braille Library. If you are eligible, but are not registered with our library, please submit a completed student application found here.
- Registration for the Talking Books Summer Reading Program is open now and ends on June 26, 2020. REGISTER HERE.
- After you register for the Summer Reading Program, you will receive a packet that includes a reading journal so you can keep track of the books you read. A recommended reading list will also be provided, along with information about how to win even more prizes over the summer. To see more prizes CLICK HERE.
- All books in our collection are available on BARD to download. If you do not have a BARD account yet APPLY HERE.
- You and/or your parents or guardians are responsible for keeping track of how many books you read.
When your reading journal arrives, you will set a reading goal (10 books or more for a challenge!) to keep you busy reading over the course of the summer. You will enter the books you read into your reading journal. Submit your reading journal by mail or online by August 21 to be eligible for the grand prize drawing (Winner’s choice of an Apple iPad Mini 5, Amazon Fire HD and Echo Dot, or Apple Watch). To submit your reading journal online FILL IT OUT HERE.- We will provide more opportunities to win prizes with weekly book discussions starting on June 22. For more information check out our Summer Reading Program Blog: PLEASE GO HERE.
- Prize winners will be contacted by email/phone, and the Grand Prize winner will be announced in the fall issue of the Student Newsletter.
Why Participate in Summer Reading?
Reading keeps your mind active, and students who do not engage is educational activities over the summer can lose retention of up to 2 months or roughly 22% of what they learned during their school year. This phenomenon is called the “Summer Slide”. Because of this slide, many teachers devote up to a month re-teaching material learned in the previous school year, resulting in a lost month that could have been spent teaching the students new information and skills.
Information taken from Reading Is Fundamental (www.rif.org); article “Keeping Kids off the Summer Slide.”