Jan 22, 2018
D.C. fifth graders are picking up books faster than ever, thanks to a student-driven initiative to connect more kids to reading and asking life’s big questions.
Students at Truesdell Education Campus are bucking the national decline in book reading by starting a book club themselves – it’s also now the D.C. area school’s most popular student club, says assistant principal Michael Redmond, who helps facilitate the student group.
The boys-only book club came about last December, when one Truesdell fifth-grader complained to school administrators that his citywide English exam didn’t match up to his real reading ability. Starting with their first book, Walter Dean Myer’s Bad Boy: A Memoir, the book club now meets once or twice weekly before the first school bell rings. Students discuss a range of issues with Redmond, from race to identity and life for young boys at school and home.
Redmond says the school is overjoyed that “kids would be this serious about reading and about doing something that we didn’t ask them to do.” The book club, he adds, “is disrupting the notion of what public education can be and what little black boys can do and be.”
Book groups are great learning and networking opportunities for all students, too.
For one, they’re a convenient way for tutors to bring together current and potential students in a group activity.
Reading together gives tutors a chance to use the same lesson plan for multiple students, and to work through common hurdles your students might face in terms of reading comprehension and vocabulary. You can also identify areas where individual students may need further, personalized attention during your private sessions.
There’s another advantage to book groups: by organizing a regular meeting at a local library or coffeeshop, tutors have a chance to interact with parents and others in the community, getting your business name out there at the same time as improving your students’ reading abilities (and the nation’s bookish habits).
Just another way reading a book can changes lives and boost your tutoring game.
These kids started a book club for minority boys. It’s the most popular club in school. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/these-kids-started-a-book-club-for-minority-boys-its-the-most-popular-one-in-school/2018/01/21/c15620e2-fc6d-11e7-ad8c-ecbb62019393_story.html
