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Reading Incentives

Motivating Children

Alien patch

The more you read,
The more you know.
The more you know,
The smarter you'll grow.
The smarter you grow,
The stronger your voice,
When speaking your mind
or making your choice!

Encouraging children to read frequently with a wide diet of literature is important for the development of strong reading and language skills. We offer reading prizes to encourage children to visit the Library and to celebrate their accomplishments.

Throughout the school year we offer the Railway Readers program for preschoolers and the Reading Patch Club for school-age children. As always, we will work with whichever program is most motivating for the child. Our Summer Reading Program explores a different theme each season with a wide variety of prize offerings. Star Reader Patch

Reading Patch Club

This club is for kids of all reading levels and is available throughout the school year. Stop by the Youth Services department to get a booklog for the child's appropriate reading level. We recommend this group for kids in kindergarten and older.

Levels available are:

  • Read-to-Me: Kids that are being read to by a grown-up or sibling
  • Beginning Readers: Kids starting to read independently
  • Chapter Book Readers: Kids reading books of 75 or more pages

After completing each log, kids can pick one of 30 different patches! Patches make a wonderful decoration for a book bag, a bulletin board border, or even a reading banner. Books must be checked out from Thomas Ford to count for the program.

Railway Readers

We have a special program that is perfect for the preschool-age set. Simply ask for a sheet from our Youth Services desk or download a copy of it here (PDF).

Each sheet has six trains that a child will color for every 15 minutes that he or she is read to. After you fill the sheet (about 2 hours of reading), bring it back to our desk to choose a prize.

There is no registration required, but the books do need to be checked out from Thomas Ford to count for the program.