LEWISTON — The Lewiston Public Library has announced the winners of this year’s Teen Summer Reading Program, “You Are Here.” The grand prize, an iPod Touch, was awarded to Katie Cleary, 15, for logging the most time spent reading during the five-week program — more than 200 hours. Nadifa Mohamed, 18, was the winner of the raffle drawing for an iPod Nano.

Participants in the program logged time spent reading each day and were awarded points for every 30 minutes of reading time. Bonus points were awarded for time spent reading inside the library, finishing books, writing book reviews or short stories and attending teen programs at LPL. Readers reported their totals weekly, using the points they earned to buy small prizes or raffle tickets towards the iPod Nano.

The program evolved from the perennially successful LPL Summer Reading Game for younger children. Both activities are geared toward correcting what education researchers call “the summer slide,” the tendency of students to lose ground in reading skills during the long seasonal break. Public library summer reading programs have been shown to enhance reading skills by providing access to a wide variety of reading materials and by emphasizing the importance of time spent reading for recreation and fun.

The Teen Summer Reading Program is part of the Lewiston Public Library’s effort to increase programming opportunities and services for teenagers and young adults. For more information about ongoing teen programming, contact the reference department at 513-3135 or [email protected].