By Stephanie Froese

Caught up on summer reading, a step ahead of the school year

Aug 18, 2011 | 6:25 AM

The summer reading club at the John M. Cuelenaere Public Library has met for the last time before the school year starts back up again.

“It’s been very successful this year. We had 170 children participate and we’ve had weekly drop in story times which have been very well attended,” said Sharon Nelson, program services supervisor at the library.

The summer-club wrap-up party on Wednesday saw about 30 kids, parents and babysitters celebrate the accomplishment of a summer well read.

Each of the kids are at different reading levels, so instead of keeping track of the number of books, Nelson said they kept track of the amount of time the kids put in to read over the summer.

“This year the kids read over 70,000 minutes so the kids did really good reading this summer.”

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That totals to almost seven weeks of straight reading by kids in the summer reading program.

Prince Albert’s library joined with other public libraries across Canada by meeting throughout the summer.

The club aims to encourage growth in the literary skills of kids and help ward off the learning loss that many students experience in their break from school.

“Educators have found that it does improve children’s reading skills, if they continually read through the summer so this program really fosters that,” Nelson said.

“I encourage people to continue to read and to join again next year if you haven’t had a chance to.”

sfroese@panow.com