Sikeston Middle School

May 24, 2021

Dear Parent,

Have you ever heard of the “Summer Slide?” No, it isn’t a slide on the playground, but the loss of reading skills that occurs during the long break from school. Our school has made it a priority to keep our students’ skills sharp and off the “summer slide” by encouraging them to read all summer long.

This year, I am pleased to let you know about several summer reading programs that can motivate your child and get a free book in the process! How cool is that?

First, is the Sikeston Public Library’s Summer Reading program. They will be doing lots of really cool activities each week, so be sure to stop by and see what’s going on. Even if you aren’t able to participate in their programs, be sure to stop in often to check out some of the great selections that they have to help you meet the other two programs below.

Second is the Barnes & Noble Summer Reading program. Students only need to read 8 books of their choosing this summer and record them in the attached Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Journal. Then they can take their reading journal to Barnes & Noble between July 1st and August 31st for a FREE BOOK!

Next up, the Scholastic Summer Reading program, a FREE online reading destination where kids can read books, play games, meet authors AND help donate books to other kids! Students can participate in weekly challenges, earn digital rewards, and read e-books and watch author read-alouds!

Students can help make a difference by keeping up Reading Streaks to unlock a donation of 100,000 print books from Scholastic to Save the Children for kids in rural America with limited or no access to books.

Each week there are live events were they can meet their favorite authors:

May 7th: Tracey West (Dragon Masters, Pixie Tricks)

May 13th: Max Brallier (Eerie Elementary, Mister Shivers)

May 20th: Kelly Yang (Front Desk, Three Keys)

June 3rd: Varian Johnson (Twins, The Great Greene Heist)

June 10th: Pam Munoz Ryan (Mananaland, Esparanza Rising)

July 8th: Kwame Mbalia & Prince joel Makonnen (The Last Gate of the Emperor)

July 15th Sayantani DasGupta (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond)

July 22nd: Gordon Korman (Linked, Restart)

August 12th: Lauren Tarshis (I Survived)

August 26th: Ann M. Martin (The Baby-Sitter’s Club)

The best part of all is that these things can be combined together. Minutes spent reading can be entered at the Scholastic Summer Challenge website at www.scholastic.com/summer and when a book is finished, record it on the Barnes & Noble Reading Journal to help earn a free book. And to help you get all that reading done, you can stop by the Sikeston Public Library or read any of the fabulous e-books through our school library website at https://56.sikestonr6.org/ that are available 24 hours a day! On Destiny Discover students will use their regular usernames and passwords. For the Ebsco E-books the Username: morenetsikeston Password: bulldog1!

If you have any questions about any of these great programs, please feel free to contact me at 471-0792, even during the summer!