Next month, Longwood University’s Speech Hearing and Learning Services (SHLS) Department will host summer camps for youth. Spaces are available for three of the four camps. Registration will remain open until June 17 or until all spaces are filled.

The camps run July 5-28 and are available for a variety of ages.

A $25 non-refundable deposit is required to reserve a spot in any of the camps. Children of Longwood employees receive a 10-percent discount. Limited stipends are available if needed.

The camps are planned, organized and operated by graduate students in the SHLS program. Clinical Educators Caitlin Frank and Stephanie Bailey help to oversee the students and supervise the programming.

“(The students) lead the camps, they plan, they budget, they do it all,” said Frank. “They have to plan it so all activities are functional for all the students that come. They get quite an experience.”

SHLS offers four different camps for children. Their Jump Start program is offered for children ages 3-5. This camp has already filled up for the summer. 

However, three other camps are still accepting applications. Those are the LEGO camp, Reader’s Theater and Project Word Spelling Camp.

The Language Enrichment through Games and Opportunities (Camp LEGO) is offered for participants ages 6-13. There are session offered Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, either 9:15 a.m.-noon, or 1:30-4:15 p.m. The camp costs $75 for the first week and $65 for each additional week.

“It’s basically a lot of games, it’s a lot of social times The kids have the opportunity to work together to play games and to make crafts,” said Bailey.

The Reader’s Theater Program will be a collaboration, with some students from the YMCA summer camps joining up with LU campers to learn to love reading. Campers will practice reading from scripts together, and on the last day, they will perform a play.

This camp will take place Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 1:30-4:14 p.m. The first week is $75 and each consecutive week is $65.

Joyanna Struzzieri, a graduate student clinician, is in the group working to plan the Readers Theater camp.

“Unfortunately, a lot of kids these days are not reading. They’re playing video games, they’re watching TV, and reading is so important as children grow up. They learn a lot of vocabulary words in there, so getting them to love reading is a vital step for them as they continue on with them.”

Struzzieri said, “Also, with the Reader’s Theater, getting them to share with each other what they’re learning and they get to enact it. So they get to not only fall in love with it themselves’ but they get to share it with others.”

Project Word Spelling Camp is also available for students to improve their spelling in a fun atmosphere. This camp takes place over three Mondays, July 11, 18 and 25. It costs $65 for the first week and $45 for each additional week.

“I think this is a great opportunity for both us as Longwood students and for the community for us to be able to give back and show them how important reading is, and learning is and language in general,” said Struzzieri.

For more information on the camps, contact Longwood’s SHLS offices at (434) 395-2972 or visit www.longwood.edu/shls/summercamps.htm.