TIFTON — The summer reading program has kicked off to a great start at the Tifton-Tift County Library. Librarians Tina O’Day and Trina Jones find ways to get children interested in reading because it can benefit them during the school year.

“One of the things we focus on is encouraging them to read during the summer because countless studies have shown that kids who read during the summer months perform better in school, and not just in reading but in every subject area,” said Jones.

Jones works with the younger aged children at the summer reading program. She gives them a reading log to keep track of how many books they have read. To incentivize the children to read, she has prizes for them, such as a treasure chest that they can pull toys from. Their top readers receive grand prizes she said.

The theme for the younger children this summer is “A Universe of Stories.” Jones went to a teacher workshop at NASA and decided to use the lessons she learned there for the summer reading program. So far, her students have built telescopes, Lego rocket ships and moon balls.

O’Day works with the teenagers in the summer reading program. She uses hands on lessons, such as cooking, to engage the students.

“Cooking is a good life skill for them to learn at their age,” said Jones. At the end of the summer, the teenager who reads the most pages earns a prize such as a Kindle.

This year O’Day’s cooking class is doing “(Hot) Dog Days of Summer,” where the teenagers try hotdogs from around the world.

“Introducing them to something like a Chicago style hot dog, opens them up a little bit. They don’t know a whole lot about the world around them so it’s neat to find different ways to expose them to culture,” said O’Day.

O’Day has to make do with the equipment she has for cooking. She is limited to a microwave and toaster oven, but she finds a way to make her cooking class fun and exciting with what she has.

Besides the cooking class, O’Day teaches a writing class. After taking the teenagers on a field trip to see Avengers Endgame, she decided to find a way to incorporate that into the reading program. The teenagers have begun writing their own stories about a superhero they created. Each teenager imagined a superhero and wrote a back-story for them.

“Even the ones that don’t really like writing have written pages and pages of stuff because it’s something that grabs their attention and they are totally into it,” said O’Day.

Thursdays are typically the busiest day for the summer reading program. At 2 p.m. they have Performance Thursdays where they bring  in a performer in such as a musician, magician, or dancers.

Musical performer Julie Austin visited the summer reading program on June 13. She sang and played her guitar for the children. Austin uses storytelling, songs and movement along with guitar autoharp, ukulele and jaw harp to encourage children’s active participation.

 The children from the YMCA summer camp joined the summer reading program for the performance by Austin. She sang “The Hello Song” with the children. The song taught the children how to say hello in Italian, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Indian.

It’s not too late to sign up for the summer reading program. To participate in the fun activities, stop by the library and speak to a librarian. The program started May 31, and it continues until July 18.  They offer daily events and activities during the week-days, including lunch for the children.