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Read to a Dog

Girl reading with therapy dog

Read to a Dog at Shaker Library is an ongoing opportunity for young readers to read to a certified therapy dog. The program is offered on the third Thursday of every month from 4 to 5:30 p.m. and has been running since 2010.

100 Days/100 Books

Wall of 100 books read by students on the 100th day of school.

Every year in late January or early February, children all over the country celebrate the 100th day of school with all sorts of clever projects — bringing 100 items to school, wearing “100th-day” glasses, listing 100 things they love to do. Why not add a reading activity to this list? Ask a group of younger students to read 100 books on the 100th day of school in one hour!

Vision to Learn

Kids receive a free eye exam and glasses.

In Cobb County, officials say about 20 percent of the 50,000 elementary school children alone would fail a vision screening, and about 8,000 will need glasses.

​Cobb libraries collaborate with the Atlanta office of the national nonprofit Vision to Learn (VTL) to host vision clinics for low-income communities. VTL provides on-site mobile vision clinics for children. The visits include free vision screenings and eye exams. Kids who get eyeglass prescriptions select free frames, and their new glasses are later delivered.

Spalding/Sign Language

Child signing a letter in front of a blackboard

Spalding/Sign Language is a year-long humanities program for kindergarteners. Our goal is to inspire a love of reading and offer a distinctly different idea for teaching literacy from the classroom. We have been able to do this by teaching letter sounds using the phonetic Spalding method and American Sign Language (ASL).

Sign language is a fabulous way to communicate. For those students who need alternate ways to communicate in front of others, it is the perfect solution. Even those students who don’t have any inhibitions love learning to speak in sign language.

Read to Swim

Girl wearing swim floaties. Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash

Read to Swim is a joint summer program with the Yukon Public Library and the local community pool that strives to get children familiar with the library space and reading during their break. It took place from July 6, 2018, through the end of August 2018.

After reading for one hour at the library, kids are given a voucher for free admission to the pool.

Booking with a Buddy: A Program to Fight the Summer Slide

Booking with a Buddy at Skokie Public Library

Libraries know all about the “summer slide.” We’ve addressed summer learning loss with reading clubs and other educational programs for decades. As a matter of fact, some families have come to view libraries as a sort of summer school or educational camp during the longest, hottest days of the year. Whoever thinks summers are slow at a library has never visited a youth department in June, July or August!

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