By Sydney Smith
Rowan Public Library

Whether your teens attended school in-person, virtually, or a combination of both, the 2020-2021 school year has inarguably been one of the most difficult on record for students, parents and educators alike. With Rowan County teens (and their teachers) cruising toward a well-deserved summer break, another challenge toward their education looms on the horizon: The dreaded “summer slide.”

Summer slide is a term coined by the educational field to describe the loss of skills and knowledge over the long term summer break. Simply put, when students spend an extended amount of time away from school, they begin to lose some of the skills they spent the previous school year building and developing. This most often reveals itself in the loss of reading and mathematics fluencies. Fortunately, summer slide is easy to curb — protect your teens’ academic progress by encouraging them to read high-interest books while they’re away from school.

This summer, as a part of Rowan Public Library’s summer reading program, teens are invited to keep track of the hours they spend reading for chances to win great prizes. Teens can participate digitally through the ReadSquared program or by filling out a paper log and returning it to any RPL location during summer reading. Teens submit their hours either digitally or in-person; near the end of Summer Reading, the librarian will contact them so they can exchange their number of hours read for raffle tickets. Prizes being raffled away in this year’s teen summer reading program will include a Kindle tablet, various gift cards, art sets and more. The more hours teens spend reading over the summer, the more raffle tickets they’ll be able to complete.

For more information about how to participate in teen summer reading, you can contact Sydney Smith at sydney.smith@rowancountync.gov or 704-216-7841. Additionally, summer reading information concerning programs and activities for all ages will appear on rowanpubliclibrary.org as well as RPL’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Sydney Smith is young adult librarian at the Rowan Public Library.