Marietta Summer Reading Camp MARIETTA, OH (WOUB) - It's only February but people are already preparing for the Summer Reading Camp in Marietta.

The camp helps students from kindergarten through sixth grade to improve their reading skills.

Marietta College Education Professor Carolyn Backus has been involved with the camp for many of its 20 years.

"The program was formed for two reasons," she says. "One, so that children in the community could have something to do over the summertime, and secondly, for our teacher candidates to be able to practice the strategies that they learn in the classroom."

The program typically hosts between 80 and 100 children, and activities extend beyond just reading.

"We do just about anything," Bakus says. "We bring in animals, we take field trips, we go down to the castle, the museum, sometimes they just go down to the pet store and they adopt a pet. Each classroom has a pet, which doesn't happen in the school systems."

The Marietta Summer Reading Camp is four weeks long, beginning in June.

It's open to students from schools in Washington County and in Wood County, West Virginia.

The Marietta Morning Rotary Club has made the camp one of its major community projects.

The club conducts fundraising activities for children who can't afford the tuition.

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