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Nine-year-old Traje'ana Hash on Monday swapped several of her own paperback books for some that she has not read from the collection at the West End Center For Youth in Roanoke.

Hash said she likes to read the Junie B. Jones, Magic Tree House and Bailey School Kids series. She currently is reading "Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots."

The rising fourth-grader is one of about 100 city schoolchildren participating in the center's summer program, which includes an emphasis on reading. Two grants totaling $20,000 from the Foundation for Roanoke Valley fund the salaries of a reading teacher and an instructional assistant for the program.

"I think it is real important to create a hunger for reading with the children," said Diana Rayburn, the center's summer reading teacher.

The students in the summer program are split into groups by age and rotate to different centers daily, including 45 minutes two days a week in the reading room. Rayburn works with the students on grade-level-appropriate skills from letter recognition to reading comprehension. Older students read chapter books alone or in groups, and the younger children sit on the carpet for story time with picture books.

Rayburn on Monday morning worked with three preschool students to make books of the nursery rhyme "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Meanwhile, instructional assistant Caroline Deck worked with three other preschool students on sounds. She used a catchy tune -- "Who Let The Dogs Out," made popular by the Baha Men -- and replaced "dogs" with the letters of the alphabet. The children respond with the sound each letter makes.

Rayburn has six stations set up in her classroom: phonics, grammar, high-frequency words, spelling, word ladder worksheets and reading comprehension.

"I think it helps them stay on the level they left school with," said Rayburn, who teaches at Roanoke's Lincoln Terrace Elementary School during the school year.

Joy Parrish, the center's executive director, said a majority of the students at the center demonstrate an enjoyment for reading by choosing a book to read without prompting.

"The more they read, the better they read," Parrish said.

The center operates year-round on a budget of about $600,000 and every grant helps.

"A lot of time, you need this to pay the staff. They are the backbone," Parrish said.