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CommunityKids catch reading bug in library programs
Butterflies part of theme to keep skills sharp over summer
Friday, July 11, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by JESSE YEATMAN
Anna Burke and her 16-month-old son Jack, left, Andrew Cosgrove, 2, center, and Andy Wathen, 3, watch as librarian Paige Boyer releases butterflies at the Lexington Park library last week.
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‘‘We’re going to release our butterflies that have hatched,” she said.
‘‘Oooh!” replied the audience.
The group went outside to a small courtyard, and Boyer tapped on the bottom of the butterflies’ net enclosure to coax them out.
One by one they took flight, fluttering over the heads of the children and into the sky.
The theme for this year’s summer reading program is ‘‘Catch the Reading Bug,” and the children’s department at each of the county libraries purchased and raised butterflies and ladybugs.
‘‘Catch the Reading Bug” is a national theme, said Janis Cooker, library youth coordinator.
Though this is the library’s first year participating in the national program; it has done a statewide program for at least nine years.
The program, at all three county libraries, includes three reading clubs for kids – one for birth to age 2, one for age 3 through fifth grade, and one, called ‘‘Metamorphosis,” for sixth grade and up.
Cooker said participation has been high. ‘‘Last week we had 2,200” kids in the county sign up, she said.
The purpose of the program is ‘‘to keep [kids’] reading skills on grade level throughout the summer,” said Cooker. ‘‘Research shows that if kids continue reading over the summer, they stay on grade level.”
In the program, children list the books they have read on a reading log, which they return to the library once every three weeks for prizes. The first prize the readers receive is a Chick-fil-A coupon. The second is a bug toy, but ‘‘we have other things in case they don’t want a bug,” said Cooker. The third prize children receive is an age-appropriate book.
Each child participating in a reading club receives two lawn tickets to the July 13 Southern Maryland Blue Crabs baseball game at the new Regency Furniture Stadium in Waldorf. One hundred reading club participants will receive two Baltimore Orioles tickets (one child and one adult) in a random drawing.
The Metamorphosis club has bi-weekly drawings for prizes and will have a drawing for grand prizes, including an iPod and a digital camera, at the end of the program.
Young volunteers in sixth grade and up sign up participants and give out prizes.
Cooker said there are more than 100 volunteers at the three libraries. ‘‘We couldn’t do it without them,” she said.
Volunteers Faith Hastings and Shefali Shah were manning the reading program table at the Lexington Park library one morning last week. A line of small rubber ducks in different painted costumes sat on a shelf behind them, waiting to be given out as prizes.
Hastings, who will be in seventh grade next year and is home schooled, said she volunteers because ‘‘I love the library. I thought it would be a good opportunity to help out.”
Hastings said she has a busy summer planned – she also plays Mary Spray at the Spray Plantation at Historic St. Mary’s City.
Shah, who is a rising 10th-grader in the STEM program at Great Mills High School, has volunteered for several years with the reading program. ‘‘It’s so much fun. I like to see all the little kids ... I just love the library,” she said.
Cooker said some of the library’s professional children’s performances this summer will be in keeping with the buggy reading club theme.
Also, a computer class for children ages 8 and up, called ‘‘What’s That Bug?” and planned for July 10 and 24, will involve identifying bugs online.
Participants are asked to bring a bug to the class, ‘‘in a secure container, hopefully,” said Cooker.
