Live Oak Libraries engage kids, parents with entertainment

Seventh-grader Hannah Park loves to read, so reaching her goal in the summer reading program at Live Oak Public Libraries won’t be a problem.

Park, who is one of over 4,900 children participating in the program, said she has read at least 10 books this summer.

While she would read regardless of the program, she participates because she enjoys it. “It’s pretty good. They work a lot to encourage people,” she said.

Park, who attends Esther F. Garrison – School for the Arts, also has written two books with her sister Annette. “Gwinn the Penguin” and “Sylvester the Snail” are available online, her mother Joo Park said. “Her inspiration is from the library. Since she was young, we’ve been coming to the library,” Joo Park said. Reading books helped Hannah learn grammar and how to write.

The Parks were at the Oglethorpe branch last week for a performance by Chad Crews, who incorporates music and magic into shows designed to encourage children to read.

While libraries used to be a place for quiet reading only, they have become centers for activities centered on art, science, technology and socialization. Most libraries have activities involving Legos and art for young children regularly, said Catherine Baldwin, regional librarian in charge of children’s and teens programming who administers the summer reading program at Live Oak Public Libraries throughout Chatham, Liberty and Effingham counties.

Computers are free to use, and children of all ages take advantage of the air-conditioned facilities to fill their days with exploration of many topics, Baldwin said. At most branches, children earn small prizes as they finish each level in the program. At the end of the summer, they receive a gift certificate to a retailer and can participate in an end-of-program party.

The program is designed to prevent so-called summer slide, or a decline in reading proficiency from the dog days of summer, Baldwin said.

“If they don’t read during the summer, when they come back to school, statistically it’s been shown they’ll lose one to three months of reading ability. If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it; you’ll slide back,” Baldwin said. She pointed to research from Johns Hopkins University first published in 2007 that indicated the achievement gap among low-income high school students was largely due to summer learning loss in elementary school.

Test scores from Savannah-Chatham County Public School System indicate summer slide isn’t a big problem for most students here, but perhaps it’s because of efforts such as the libraries’ summer reading program. In Chatham County, Baldwin said the program has been in existence since before 2000, when she was hired. “Literacy and being able to read on grade level plays such an important role in all academic learning, that we can’t afford to hit the brakes,” she said.

As of July 18, with two weeks left to go in the program, about 1,800 had achieved the first level of the K-12 program, and 370 young children had achieved the first level of the early literacy program, Baldwin said. “This is where parents are so crucial because they are their kids’ first teachers and role models,” she said. “If they bring their kids in, we’ll take it from there.”

Baldwin encourages children to ask librarians for help finding books to read. “You don’t like the book, that’s fine. We’ll find a book you like,” she said.

Children at day care centers and day camps also participate in the program. About 20 children in Tybee Island YMCA’s day camp read every day for 30 minutes after lunch and are participating in the library program. “We give them every opportunity to read,” said Laura Schmarkey, program director at Tybee Island YMCA. Younger children who haven’t learned to read yet are paired with older children, or they pick a book from a shelf at the camp and ask a counselor to read to them. “If a counselor sits down with you, it’s way more fun,” Schmarkey said.

On Mondays and Fridays, the campers go to the Tybee Island branch library for activities, such as a craft or story program. It’s important “to keep their brains active, so they’re not just playing dodge ball,” Schmarkey said.

While the library branches welcome day camps, many children walk from their homes to the library and spend the day there, Baldwin says. While libraries used to be a place for quiet reading only, they have become centers for activities centered on art, science, technology and socialization. Most libraries have activities involving Legos and art for young children regularly, Baldwin said. Computers are free to use, and children of all ages take advantage of the air conditioned facilities to fill their days with exploration of many topics.

Library programming is funded by tax dollars, corporate grants and foundation dollars, Baldwin said. Live Oak has 16 branches, with 12 in Chatham County and two each in Liberty and Effingham. Several branches serve free lunch to low-income families: In Chatham County, Bull Street, Garden City and Southwest Chatham libraries are serving lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays through Fridays through July 27. Midway-Riceboro and Port City libraries offer free lunch from 12 to 1 p.m., and Hinesville provides it from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“We used to do simpler programs, but we’ve been adding things every year that we can do,” Baldwin said.

Most children who registered for the summer reading program will successfully complete their reading goals, Baldwin said. They include about 912 early literacy children and 4,050 elementary-age children and middle and high school teens.

Pre-readers can participate by listening to stories read by others. They complete five literacy activities per level for a total of 15 during the summer program. Some choose to do the same five activities three times, Baldwin said. Repetition is important for pre-readers because that’s how they master a story. “They want to sing the same song and read the same book over and over,” she said. While they might not be reading on their own, they are learning about sequencing, which is an important part of literacy.

The program for elementary school students is based on minutes of reading. The first level requires 135 minutes to complete, or just over two hours of reading. “It’s very easy to achieve and give them a sense of success,” Baldwin said. Level two requires 255 minutes, or just over four hours, and level three requires six hours. If students complete the three levels, they will have read 750 minutes or 12.5 hours, which amounts to about 25 minutes a day during June and July.

At Southwest Chatham, the children’s library kicked off the summer reading program with a mini golf activity that had children and parents teeing up around the stacks of books. While the children were waiting for their tee time, they colored a line drawing or created their own artwork, which was incorporated into a mural now hanging on the library’s wall, Baldwin said