This article is for parents who want to encourage summer reading by organizing and hosting home reading groups for children.
How can you or your children start and host a summer reading group?
Organize With a Purpose in Mind:
The first step toward organizing a reading group is to look at your purpose. Why have a reading Club? Is it to help the children involved to increase their love of reading? Is your goal to improve reading skills, help develop friendships, pass time out of school in a worthwhile activity, or perhaps to keep up reading skills during school vacation? Is your purpose purely to entertain small children? Are you attempting to encourage reading in a particular field of interest? To prepare for a trip or event?
Once you have decided and on your purpose you should have an idea about what sorts of books to use in your club and a grasp of the style and size of the reading group. Decide how often to meet--once a week or once a month?
Name your group and allow your children to help write up guidelines and a plan for the group.
Write up a list of prospective books to read aloud to the children or a list of books to be read by older children to be discussed at the group meetings. A book list can be obtained from the internet, from a school teacher, from a librarian or made up of the favorite books of your childhood, or the most popular books of the year. I recommend consulting a book called Books Children Love by Elizabeth Wilson.
Set a date for your first reading club meeting. Send out invitations to some other families who have children of close ages. You may want to start at the local library where you can choose some books.
Before the initial meeting:
Prepare a reading area. Use a table or living area where the children can sit in a circle with their moms. Prepare casual and comfortable seating for all. Make certain the reading area is cheerful and well lighted. You may want to decorate the area with posters or pictures which are inspirational to readers. Or the host could decorate with items that connect to the book’s theme, setting, or era.
Storybook Reading or Book presentation:
Begin with some story telling or the reading of a storybook to the children.
Factual questions to get people talking:
The group leader should begin a discussion by asking a simple question about the book. A simple question should be a factual type question. For example: Where did this story happen? Who were the main characters? Who illustrated this storybook?
Thought provoking questions to go deeper:
After the group members have had a chance to answer, the leader should ask a deeper, thought provoking question. For example: What can we learn from this book? What moral does the story present? What is the real meaning the writer was trying to portray?
Encourage readers to take notes and jot down an answer or two before contributing to the discussion
Discuss the book’s cover and illustrator. Was the choice of illustrator right for the book? What other books are illustrated by that artist?
Lastly, ask the members to give their personal opinion of the book in process.
Briefly discuss an upcoming selection so that the group members will become interested and plan to read the book. The leader may read the cover flap or blurbs on the back cover to ignite interest in the book to be read next.
Meeting Ideas and Helpful Hints:
Any meeting is more fun and friendly with refreshments. Keep them simple—cookies and a drink (after the books are safely put away.) Crafts are also fun with the little ones especially.
Girls might like to have a summer reading club to read The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls. At each meeting they could work on a pioneer craft, such as: beading, sewing, knitting or crocheting, making corn husk dolls. They might like cooking pioneer foods as refreshments
Boys might enjoy reading some of Max Anderson’s boy adventure books. Active games and refreshment ideas could be drawn from the story for that meeting.
Consider having a speaker if your group consists of older students. A librarian or author would be a good choice and hopefully help arouse interest in some additional types of literature.
Small children might enjoy a scavenger hunt with items from the storybook. For example, if the story were The Ox Cart Man by. The hunt could list items such as apples, flour, and other items sold. Caps for Sale could include the fun of each child trying to balance a stack of baseball caps. Blueberries for Sal could include a game of dropping small items into a bucket to hear the sound so to see who can guess what each is. Blueberry muffins could be the refreshments.
Have fun creating your own summer reading club! Be creative and get those children loving to read!
