Want to prevent the "summer slide" in your child's academic progress?
Libraries on about 200 military installations around the world are hosting sports-themed activities, prizes and book choices in their summer reading campaign dubbed "Read — for the Win." Besides providing plenty of reading options, libraries will feature activities such as Teddy Bear Olympics and Bingo for Books for every age group.
Most of the reading programs run for six to eight weeks with open enrollment this summer. Check with your installation library for more details and timelines. For contact information on libraries, visit MilitaryOneSource.mil, and scroll to the installation program directory at the bottom.
Navy veteran and book illustrator Frank Remkiewicz aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd last fall.
Photo Credit: Mack Stringfield
The promotional materials for the program feature "Froggy" artwork created by Navy veteran Frank Remkiewicz. Froggy is the main character in 27 children's books written by Jonathan London and illustrated by Remkiewicz.
"This year's program coincides with the Olympic Games, and — like the Olympics — our theme stands for much more than just sports, games and competition. Olympians aspire to achieve greatness, to set goals and accomplish them, despite any obstacles," said Holly May, program assistant in the Navy General Library Program, in a statement announcing this year's program.
"I hope our families will 'go for the gold' and join our global community of readers and library users."
It might be difficult to break the record set by last summer's readers in military communities worldwide, who clocked nearly 42 million minutes reading. That's more than twice the minutes logged in 2014.
The summer reading program is sponsored by the Defense Department, and its content is developed by iREAD, with resource guides to help librarians motivate children to read.
Research shows that students typically score lower on standardized tests at the end of the summer vacation than they do on the same tests at the beginning of the summer. Thus the term "summer slide." And studies indicate that students who read for enjoyment academically outperform those who don't. Students read more when they choose their own materials based on their own interests.
"We encourage kids to exercise their reading muscles to keep them in shape," May said.
Karen Jowers covers military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times. She can be reached at kjowers@militarytimes.com.
Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book "A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families." She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.
