The Booklands Explorers summer reading program at the Winkler branch of the South Central Regional Library capped up another hugely successful summer with a carnival in Bethel Heritage Park Monday afternoon for its youngest participants and a trivia night competition at the library Friday night for the teen program. Coordinators Mikaela Warkentin and Isaiah Armstrong share that the summer set new heights in participation, with 670 children signed up for the main program and another 55 in the Teen Reads program. Collectively, the kids read a whopping 20,202 hours, earning prizes throughout the summer and also grand prize raffle tickets for their efforts.
“It was a resounding success,” said Warkentin. “We’ve had an exponential increase in kids registered.” The program strives to get kids invested in reading outside of school. “Parents say that their kids are spending a lot more time reading even above their grade level, which is the goal,” Warkentin said.
“The goal of summer programming is to reduce the summer slump, which is essentially a backsliding in reading skills. And I can say with certainty that it’s been very successful in stopping that this summer.”
The program offered younger kids daily activities at the library and weekly teen programming as well.
Photos by Ashleigh Viveiros/Voice
