JBER library enlists service dogs, ferrets for a “Paws to Read” activity day

by Airman 1st Class Tammie Ramsouer
JBER Public Affairs

6/17/2014 - JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska -- For the past five years, the Department of Defense has been encouraging children, teens and adults to read during the summer through the iREAD Program at base libraries.

The initiative endeavors to create resource guides and animal-themed materials and activities to provide a way to keep up with children's literacy through the summer.

Participants can log their reading hours when they sign up for the summer reading program on the DoD website or through the JBER Consolidated Library's website.

"This year's theme is 'Paws to Read' and during the six-week period, the readers will be reading books that are animal-themed," said Marcia Lee, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson librarian.

During these six weeks, the library will host events for the participants of the program, such as craft projects, reading sessions and animal presentations.

"They will also be receiving a take-home craft when they sign up," Lee said. "It's a time for families to do a little crafting together."

The program breaks up into three categories. The first is for younger children at an age when they can be read to or they can read to a parent. The next category is for the pre-teens and teenagers, and the third is for adults.

"All of the categories are age-appropriate," Lee said.

"To keep track of how many books the children read, we give parents a bookmark with four Paws to Read logos on it and we punch the logos out when the parents tell us their children have read four books," Lee said.

For adults to receive incentives at the end of the six weeks, they must read at least three books, but there is no upper limit.

"The children's incentives are by the minutes they read (or are read to), up to 500 minutes," Lee said. "It's amazing how many children exceed that amount of time. I always ask them if they have done any chores this week because of how many minutes I see they have read."

"So far the summer reading program has been great; it encourages the kids," said Crystal Powell, wife of Air Force Staff Sgt. Steven Powell, 673d Aircraft Maintenance Unit. "The library does a wonderful job at getting the kids interested in reading with all the events and incentives they do."

By reading four books, children and teens earn a free game of bowling at Polar Bowl.
At the end of the six-week program, the library submits the top three readers, one in each age group, to Air Force Libraries in San Antonio, where a name will be drawn for a grand prize.

"My philosophy is that I don't like to call them prizes," Lee said. "They are incentives to encourage children, and all of us, to read and to learn and develop a curiosity through reading."