By Chris Faulkner
A good question for the next trivia night is, “Who started the first free public library?” The answer is Benjamin Franklin.
An even better question is, “Who started the first summer reading program?”
That would be Franklin again, as Burlington Public Library director Brittany Jacobs told the Burlington Rotary Club on Monday, June 5.
Jacobs and teen specialist Becky Ruberg promoted the summer reading program, “Find Your Voice,” which began Monday, June 5, and runs through July 29.
Jacobs said it was a hectic morning with school out and students anxious to take part in the annual program, which is not only for children.
“It’s for babies all the way through (older age groups),” Jacobs said, but children are the focus.
“With the summer reading program, we are trying to help bridge the gap between the school years and fight against what they call ‘summer slide,’ ” Jacobs said.
The summer break causes students to lose some of their skills.
“Research has shown that if you keep kids’ minds active, they have a much higher success rate of retaining that knowledge,” Jacobs said.
But the program has changed. In the past, participants had to read so many hours or so many books. Now if you read that day, it counts for that day.
“We’re trying to remove some of these barriers, particularly for kids who struggle with literacy already,” Jacobs said.
By taking away those barriers, “then you open the doors for that serendipitous positive experience with reading,” Jacobs said. “We’re just hoping the books they’re choosing are exciting enough to engage them.”
The library has also scaled back the prizes awarded.
Research has shown that incentivizing reading does not work, Jacobs said. Thus, children receive a gift, and there are raffles in between.
The Summer Reading Program is the largest part of the library’s budget, so scaling back the number of rewards helps with that.
For adults, each week they read five days, their names will go into a box related to a specific prize package of the reader’s choosing.
Ruberg spoke about a new wrinkle to her summer reading program. It’s modeled after “Wednesday,” the Netflix series about Wednesday Addams of the Addams Family fame.
“It’s a teen writing program,” Ruberg said. “We’re going to do a little short story writing and a journal which we’ll each decorate. Then we’re going to have some fun, enrichment activities alongside.”
Then, at the end of the summer reading program, Ruberg encouraged people of all ages to take a “vacation through time” to visit ancient Rome, which is part of the Vacation in Time series that guided participants through the Titanic this past spring.
That will be Friday, July 28, Saturday, July 29, and Monday, July 31.
