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NAPLES —
Lisa Wendel walked out of the headquarters branch of the Collier County Public Library ready for summer.

In her arms were a stack of books, mysteries and romances, waiting for their pages to be opened.

“I just do it for fun,” Lisa, 14, said of reading. “Not too many of my friends do it, but I read a lot because it lets me find more things to build (my knowledge) on.”

Whatever she is reading, Lisa is cracking a book this summer and that’s something educators and researchers believe is necessary to help her when she soon starts her freshman year at Gulf Coast High School.

And it is not just true for high school students.

Kaitlin Yonge, 10, a fifth-grader at Pelican Marsh Elementary School, said she has enjoyed reading The Beacon Street Girls, a series of books written by Annie Bryant.

“They’re about a group of girls who go through problems and solve them,” she said.

Kaitlin also had a copy of Judy Blume’s “Fudge-a-Mania” in her hands. Blume is an author familiar to her mother, Stephanie Yonge, who read Blume’s books when she was younger.

“I think she likes to get lost in the stories. She likes being taken away to another place,” Yonge said.

Yonge said she tries to encourage both Kaitlyn and younger sister, Megan, to be good readers.

“It is important to read. You learn how to learn,” she said. “And I think it helps with boredom. It breaks up the summer. They also need to be in the practice of reading. You don’t want them to be out of school for two months and not pick up a single book.”

Research backs up Yonge’s assertion that children need to read over their summer vacation and shows that children who don’t continue reading through the summer can lose a month or more of progress made during the school year. Of greater concern, according to the International Reading Association, is that the losses are cumulative, creating a wider gap each year between more-proficient and less-proficient students.

Current research points out that more summer reading reduces the amount of summer learning loss.

“A key step toward stopping the summer slide is the development and launch of high-quality programs that take advantage of time outside the school day and year to help children learn, grow and develop,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said.

A study by Scholastic Inc. revealed that the No. 1 complaint from children regarding reading is that they don’t read more because they cannot find books they enjoy.

Lisa said she would recommend that students like herself read books by Nicholas Sparks.

“They’re all kind of the same, but I like sad books,” she said. “They’re just really good books.”

Parents are a top source of book suggestions for kids who read most, according to Scholastic’s Kids and Family Reading Report.

But for parents who don’t have book suggestions for their children, there is help.

The Collier County School District publishes reading lists for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. The lists are available on the district’s Web site, www.collier.k12.fl.us/parents/summerreading.asp.

Just Read, Florida! _ the reading initiative signed by then-Gov. Jeb Bush in 2001 _ also has developed a recommended reading list for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. It is available at www.justreadfamilies.org/SummerReadingList.pdf.

The Collier County Public Library also offers a free summer reading program that gives students incentives to read. For the younger students, the library allows students to get a pocket prize each time the students report they have read a book over the summer.

In addition, the library will enroll students who read between five and 15 books, depending on the child’s age and reading ability, into a drawing for a pass to the Sun-N-Fun Lagoon in North Naples. Gold medal winners, those students who have gone above the initial Sun-N-Fun drawing, will be entered into a drawing for a one-year family membership to the Naples Zoo.

For students age 11 to 17, the library will give a $5 gift card from Amazon.com for every 1,000 pages read.

Both contests run through July 26.

“It’s a good incentive,” said Yonge, who signed both of her daughters up for the program. “We participate every year.”

In a 2003 study, University of Florida education professors Anne McGill-Franzen and Richard Allington found that a summer setback is a bigger problem for children from low-income families. One of the reasons, the two say, is that economically disadvantaged children don’t have their own bedroom libraries.

Barnes and Noble Booksellers is looking to remedy that. The book retailer, which is located at the Waterside Shops, is offering students in grades one through six the opportunity to receive a free book through its “Passport to Summer Reading with The 39 Clues” program.

Children have to read any eight books by Sept. 7, 2010, and record them in a passport, which is available at the store. Once the student has recorded the books, and where those books took place, he or she will be allowed to pick from a list of free books to add the book to his or her library.

Before school was out for the year, Sea Gate Elementary teacher Maria Cabrera spoke with all of the parents of her students, giving them information about the Barnes and Noble program _ the store is virtually across the street from the school _ and the public libraries.

“It’s my job to help them find the resources they need to help their children,” said Cabrera, who teaches English Language Learners. “We try to tell them what books are appropriate or what titles their students might like. If they don’t read, they will learn what they lose over the summer.”

A complete list of recommended books is available at www.justreadfamilies.org/SummerReadingList.pdf

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_ Connect with reporter Katherine Albers at www.naplesnews.com/staff/katherine-albers/.

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