Schools
North County Mobile Reading Program Garners More Than 800 Participants
St. Louis County Library, Hazelwood School District's Sweet Reads program proves successful in first run.
A summer reading program collaboration has proven a success for North County students.
St. Louis County Library and Hazelwood School District's Sweet Reads program garnered more than 845 kids, teenagers and adults checking out more than 3,300 items from the mobile unit carrying books and the library's summer reading club near Larimore and Twillman elementary schools. The seven-week program was designed to help keep reading skills high among students during the summer months.
The turnout for the program surprised many of the organizers.
“I was overwhelmed with the turnout, so many kids and even parents attended the session," Geralyn Clifton, HSD's English language arts curriculum coordinator,
said. "I was definitely excited to see the parents and adults participating and grabbing books for themselves. Hopefully, when students come back after summer break, they will have advanced a whole reading level. The goal is to prevent them from falling behind on their independent reading objectives. With Sweet Reads, I’m almost positive they will stay up to speed."
Those who completed the library's summer reading club received a certificate for a special reward at the beginning of the school year.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.