Don’t give books a vacation. Add reading as one of those things you want to do over the summer. The price is right; you can check out books free at the library and win prizes. Encourage your young readers to keep reading over the summer. Your child can select from 75,000 books, magazines, and audio books that are available for checkout with an Appalachian Regional Library (your local Ashe County Public Library card). The reading program is not only for readers, but children who are not yet reading. The Ashe County Public Library’s summer reading program begins on June 10 and runs through July 23.

Skyline Telephone, GE Aviations, Wendy’s, Smoky Mountain Barbeque, and New River Outfitters realize the importance of reading. Through donations from Skyline and GE Aviations, the youth services department purchased prizes to encourage reading. “We sincerely appreciate the generosity of the businesses which support the local youth and building of young minds” said Peggy Bailey youth services librarian. Choose a book, earn a cap and patch, get a tasty treat, and select from the prize cart. If you read over the eight-hour goal, then there are chances to win additional prizes.

The price of keeping a book closed is high. Studies have documented a “summer slide” in reading skills if children choose not to read. From the Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, a study of 1,600 elementary students from varying backgrounds finds that reading four to five books during the summer is potentially powerful enough to prevent a decline in reading achievement scores from the spring to the fall.

Prepare your child for success, read to your child. Children prepare to read long before they enter school. Early literacy skills begin to develop in the first five years of life. Early literacy is not the “teaching of reading.” You are the key to your child’s success in learning to read. When you read, talk or play with your child, you’re stimulating the growth of your child’s brain and building the connections that will become the building blocks for reading. Brain development research shows that reading aloud to your child every day increases his brain’s capacity for language and literacy skills and is the most important thing you can do to prepare him for learning to read. When you read to a young child, you are establishing the building blocks of reading.

Library staff is available to assist in finding things your child likes to read. For example, if you like “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” you might like the “Frannie K. Stein” series by Kim Benton, “The Clarice Bean” series by Lauren Child, “Lawn Boy” by Gary Paulsen, “Frindle” by Andrew Clements, “Stink- The Incredible Shrinking Kid” by Megan McDonald, “Knights of the Kitchen Table” by Jon Scieszka, “The Legend of Spud Murphy” by Eoin Colfer, or “Sideways Stories from Wayside School” by Louis Sachar.

Teens, rising sixth graders to 12th graders, have a chance to win cash for reading. The Friends of the Library sponsored this popular teen reading program. You will also have a chance to win a tubing trip for four from New River Outfitters.

Have a Funtastic summer reading, visit your local library and read and soar.