ALA Adopts Resolution Supporting Summer Reading

From a press release sent out today by the American Library Association:

“The Council of the American Library Association (ALA) has adopted a resolution urging library directors, trustees, school board members and supervising government bodies to provide adequate funding to ensure the maintenance of summer reading programs.” 

You can read the full press release at:
http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/news/ala/ala-council-adopts-resolution-promoting-summer-reading-programs

What we liked most about this proposal was the focus it has on having school media specialists and public librarians work together to promote summer reading.  It sounds like an obvious thing, but so often the potential partnership between public libraries and their school counterparts is overlooked.

Here are some ways you can use our Summer Reader product to bring the reading goals of your public library and school system together:

• Encourage students who have summer reading lists to write a review of the book within Summer Reader.  Encourage local educators to accept print outs of the book reviews directly from Summer Reader as proof of reading (in addition to the normal follow up classroom quizzes, etc.)
• If you live in an area with multiple elementary, middle or grade schools, encourage schools to compete throughout the summer.  We know of one school district that had all middle schools compete to see which school had the most students sign up for summer reading online using Summer Reader, and which school had the most students reach the final program reading goal.  The winning school watched their Principal get a pie in the face. 
• During the summer (and year round!) encourage local preschools and day cares to participate in summer reading using the Groups feature on Summer Reader.  The Groups feature allows schools to sign up and then teachers can log in what was read aloud during story time.

For more information about ways you can use Summer Reader to encourage summer reading participation, contact our Coordinator of Customer Experience, Christine Ayar Illichmann at cayar@evancedsolutions.com

To learn more about resources available to support your summer reading programs and find ideas from the American Library Association, read ALA Library Fact Sheet 17: http://www.ala.org/ala/professionalresources/libfactsheets/alalibraryfactsheet17.cfm