'LA Times' Study Shows Value of Summer Reading

An evaluation of a summer reading program in five Southern California counties shows that an overwhelming number of parents thought their children enjoyed reading more after joining the program. The parents' positive feelings are verified by hard facts. While participating in the program, the number of children who read more than nine hours per week jumped from 16 percent to 40 percent. And the number of children who read more than 15 hours a week increased from 8.3 percent to 21 percent.

The 2000 summer reading program was supported by a grant from the Los Angeles Times Mirror Foundation's "Reading by 9" program, created to help Southern California children reach grade-level literacy by age nine. The foundation offered libraries in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties $350,000, plus about $1 million in free advertising for the program. As part of the grant, the foundation hired an outside firm to survey parents and teachers about the program's effectiveness.

The evaluation of the program's first year revealed a high degree of parent satisfaction. Eighty-five percent said their children read more than 11 books over the summer. And on an issue hotly debated by librarians, 96 percent of parents felt that incentives, such as gift certificates and stickers, encouraged their children to read. Ninety-eight percent also felt that their children enjoyed the activities, such as crafts and puppet shows.

Penny Markey, youth services coordinator for the County of Los Angeles Public Library, awaits the findings of an evaluation of the 2001 summer program, to be released in November. "We want to take the data to principals, funders, and parents," she says. "We want to use this new data as a powerful tool to bring attention to public libraries."