Santaquin Library Holding Summer Reading Awards Ceremony August 7

The Santaquin City Library (pictured above) became a home away from home for many youngsters after school let out. Many of the community's young readers participated in the Summer Reading Program.  (Photo courtesy of Lyn Oryall)

School may have been out for the summer, but for youth in Santaquin, the learning had just begun. Throughout the past seven weeks, the Santaquin Summer Reading Program offered incentives for hours committed to the pleasure of reading and spending time on projects designed to allow the learning to continue outside of the perimeters of school. Now that the summer is nearly over, prizes are slated to be awarded to those who completed the program. They will be presented during an awards ceremony planned for this Tuesday, August 7, at 6 PM.

Cash prizes and a Kindle are in store for the program's winners, whose names will be announced during the upcoming Summer Reading Awards Ceremony. The event will take place on the shady east-side of the Santaquin Library building, located at 20 West 100 South. Miss Santaquin Kylie Jo Black and her attendants, Brylee Jo Biggs and Shelby Mortensen, will be on hand to present the prizes.

According to Santaquin Library director, Lyn Oryall, drawings will also take place during the event, so that all the participants might have a chance to walk away with an award for their efforts. This is thanks, in part, to organizations affiliated with Utah's Hogle Zoo and the Salt Lake Bees, who donated tickets to their venues. Games and other prizes will also be up for draw.

This year's Summer Reading Program included three divisions, with each group presented reading goals and tasks according to grade level. Kindergartners and other children through the third grade were encouraged to read for at least sixty minutes per week and complete worksheets consisting of age appropriate crossword and word search puzzles.

Children at grade levels four through seven were handed a goal to read for at least ninety minutes a week. They were presented also with worksheets that were a bit more difficult than the younger participants.

A more difficult set of goals went, of course, to the eldest group: eighth through twelfth graders. Participants at this level were asked to spend at least 120 minutes engaged in reading per week. Three major projects, spread out through the summer, were also required. These had them each writing a 200-word original ghost story, completing a science project, and performing a scavenger hunt throughout Santaquin City.

According to Oryall, 211 young readers signed up for the seven-week program, with 102 of the participants finishing. “Which is pretty good,” she added, noting that, in past years, only a third of the participants who signed up for the program completed it.