Libraries team up for online reading program

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The Prospect Library and the Beacon Falls Library, together with Region 16 schools and the Connecticut State Library, are offering an online summer reading program for the first time. –FILE PHOTO
The Prospect Library and the Beacon Falls Library, together with Region 16 schools and the Connecticut State Library, are offering an online summer reading program for the first time. –FILE PHOTO

REGION 16 — Region 16 students will have a new way to log their summer reading this year.

The Beacon Falls Library and Prospect Library, working together with Region 16 schools and the Connecticut State Library, are offering an online summer reading program for the first time.

“We decided it would be a great collaboration between the two public libraries and the schools and create an easier way to record either hours read or books read,” Lisa Munro, Prospect assistant librarian, said.

Students in Region 16 can log either the amount of hours they have read or the number of books they have read through the Collaborative Summer Library Program website, www.cslpreads.org.

Online registration opens Thursday and students can begin logging books Friday. To register Region 16 students can visit the websites for the library in their town — www.mybflib.org or www.prospectct.com/Library — click on the link for summer reading.

Beacon Falls Assistant Librarian Sue Dowdell said elementary and middle school students can read and log whichever books they like. Only Woodland Regional High School has a required reading list, though it is offering extra credit to their students who participate in the program

Each year the state library provides a theme for the books they recommend during the summer. This year’s theme for kindergarten through fifth grade is Dig into Reading. The theme for sixth through 12th grade is Beneath the Surface. Both deal with the earth and what is found in the ground.

Regardless of students’ grade, the online program requires the same thing from students for each book they read, Dowdell said. They have to write a brief synopsis, brief review or comment about the books.

Munro said the program puts all the students in the region, which oversees schools in Beacon Falls and Prospect, on the same page and allows students to log in wherever this summer takes them.

“We’re all one region and the fact that we’re utilizing one system for students to record progress is a huge plus,” Munro said.

Students will also be able to log their reading at their local libraries.

“They connect better with their own library. They’re more familiar with their own library,” Dowdell said of the students.

If reading a book isn’t reward enough for students participating in the program, they are eligible to enter weekly raffles for a gift card from July 8 through Aug. 12.

For Dowdell the real prize for students is having finished hours of reading throughout the summer.

“Reading opens all sorts of doors,” Dowdell said. “Studies have shown that students who do not read can lose up to a year or more of their abilities and they start at a disadvantage.”

For more information, call the Prospect Library at (203) 758-3001 or the Beacon Falls Library at (203) 729-1441.

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