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Registration for Dare County Library’s 2022 summer reading program “Oceans of Possibilities” is now open. The program is free for participants and designed to be flexible and fun for children of all ages and helps area children maintain the reading skills they developed throughout the school year so they will be better prepared to enter the classroom once again in the fall.

According to the Dare County Library, when children are out of school and not reading on a regular basis, they lose an average of one month’s worth of instruction – a phenomenon often referred to as “the summer slide.” The Dare County Library encourages local parents to help their children avoid experiencing “the summer slide” by participating in the free, fun and educational summer reading program.

The program will reward children who read a total of 40 days during the 54 days of the program by providing them with a brand-new free book to keep, courtesy of the Dare County Library Foundation. The days that children spend reading throughout the summer are tracked at each Dare County Library location and the books that each child reads as part of the program can either be Dare County Library books that they have checked out or books from home.

The program also encourages children to participate in a variety of weekly programs that are scheduled to take place at each library location, but it is also flexible in order to allow children to participate in the events and activities of their choosing. Children and their parents can stop by the Dare County Library branch in their area during business hours to report and record their reading achievements.

Although the Dare County Library’s summer reading program is open to children of all ages, preschool-aged children are invited to enroll in a special “Oceans of Possibilities” program that is designed to improve their reading and listening skills. Parents of preschool-aged children who participate in this special program will have the opportunity to track the books they read with their preschoolers in a reading log and the children will receive a sticker for each day that they read or are read to.

Several summer reading program events are scheduled to take place throughout July and August, including additional visits from OBX Lizard Land, fish printing, a “Bermuda Triangle” escape room, a “Titanic” escape room, a Lego-building contest, simple science experiments, dual-language bingo games to help keep children’s Spanish knowledge fresh, learning all about bioluminescent creatures and a “Make Your Own Light-up Angler Fish” activity, as well as visits from the Coastal Studies Institute and North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island.

The program will end with a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) finale that will be held at each of the Dare County Library’s three locations.

For more information about “Oceans of Possibilities” – including a calendar of events – go to bit.ly/3Ndruh7 or contact any of the Dare County Library branches: Manteo at 252-473-2372; Hatteras at 252-986-2385 or Kill Devil Hills at 252-441-4331.

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