Children learn about communication, language, storytelling, and letters long before they actually learn to read and write, and this is where early literacy comes in. Research on early literacy and child development indicates that it is never too early to start preparing children for reading success.
Children who have been read to from an early age have a larger vocabulary, acquire better language skills, and are more likely to want to learn to read than children who have not been read to. In addition, research has shown that children need to develop certain skills in order to fully benefit from the reading instruction they receive when they arrive at school.
Did you know that Children who participated in their public library’s summer reading program scored higher on standardized tests than those who did not participate? Children who participate in their public library’s summer reading program score higher on assessment tests at the beginning of the school year than those who do not participate. By the end of third grade, children who participated in their public library’s summer reading program have better reading scores than those who did not participate.
Enjoy a different pond of fish. Find a new author. It’s easy to participate; the adventures are endless because a good book can take you anywhere; reading can improve your health and happiness at any age; and last but not least, reading is lots of fun!
This year Summer Reading program explores the ocean so we will be swimming in a new ocean and providing a new hook to hook our youth on reading. We will provide to the youth who wish to participate in our Summer Reading program a book, entertainment item, and craft ideas/project; all in a bag that is colorable.
We’ll be exploring the ocean this summer so let’s head out and explore as Ms. Frizzle would say from “The Magic School Bus”. Did you know there are more historic artefacts under the sea than in all of the world’s museums? Around 1,000 shipwrecks lie off the Florida Keys alone, some of which are within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Other underwater museums have been created in recent years, including the Mediterranean’s submerged bronze statue, Christ of the Abyss. What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches? A nervous wreck.
We still only know a fraction of the marine species in our oceans. According to the World Register of Marine Species there are now 240,470 accepted species, but this is believed to be just a small proportion of the species that exist, with new marine life being discovered every day. What did one tide pool say to the other tide pool? – Show me your mussels.
Great white sharks congregate en masse every year at a remote spot in the Pacific Ocean known as the White Shark Café. Whale sharks are not whales. Whale sharks are fish like other sharks. They were named after whales because they are the biggest of all sharks. When is a fish not a fish? When it’s a Jellyfish!
Over 70 per cent of our planet’s oxygen is produced by the ocean. It’s thought that between 70 and 80 per cent of the oxygen we breathe is produced by marine plants, nearly all of which are marine algae. When does the Arctic Ocean have no water? When it’s on a map.
It’s possible to find rivers and lakes beneath the ocean. When salt water and hydrogen sulfide combine, it becomes denser than the rest of the water around it, enabling it to form a lake or river that flows beneath the sea. What did one wave say to the other wave? – Nothing. It waved!
Not only does a large part of the planet exist beneath the ocean, so does the United States – around 50 per cent. The Pacific Ocean is the world’s largest ocean and contains around 25,000 islands. Sweden at number one has 267,570 islands, while Norway comes in at #2 with 239,057 islands and Finland follows at 3 with 178,947 islands in the Bering Sea.
According to researchers from ETH Zurich and the University of Miami, some of the largest ocean eddies on Earth are mathematically equivalent to the mysterious black holes of space. These eddies are so tightly shielded by circular water paths that nothing caught up in them escapes. These are areas of the ocean where the current sucks the water inward in a vortex-like fashion (they’re called maelstroms).
The deepest valleys and the tallest mountains on earth are found under the ocean. The deepest part of the ocean is approximately 36,200 feet deep. What happens when you throw a green rock into the Red Sea? – It gets wet.
Hydrothermal vents, also known as deep sea vents, are an opening in the ocean floor from which super-hot water mixed with hydrogen sulfide gas flows. They can reach up to 700 degrees Fahrenheit. A vent is formed when seawater seeps into cracks of the ocean floor. The water touches super-hot rocks inside the earth, then the hot water shoots up out of the vents. The first vents were discovered in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
Special bacteria manufacture their own food using heat energy and hydrogen sulfide gas from the vents. This food supports much of the life at the vents. At a hot-water vent there is enough food for many large animals. Before the 1970’s and ‘80s ocean scientists had never seen such large unusual animals like those on the deep ocean floor around the hot-water vents.
Coral reefs are made of tiny animals called coral polyps. Colorful one-celled algae live inside coral polyps, which give the coral its color. Without algae, all coral is plain white. Corals need algae, if the algae die, the coral die too. Each coral polyp grows a stony skeleton around itself. Most corals feed at night. Tiny arms come out of a coral’s stony skeleton. The arms catch plankton and pass it into the corral’s mouth.
Just one milliliter of ocean water can contain approximately 10 million viruses. In fact, the number of viruses in the ocean outnumbers the amount of stars in the Milky Way. These viruses do play an important role in the ecosystem, and many are not harmful to humans.
Need to know more about the ocean, stop on by we have an ocean of possibilities. There is no app to replace your lap, so read to the little ones. Take a dive and find a treasure under the sea. Stop on by the library to pick up a summer reading kit.