Literacy Matters - Winter 2020

In 2015, Magical Books started the Summer Reading Challenge , which addressed this problem. Six children between ages five to ten-years-old in three states participated in that year’s challenge. The children were required to read at least six books of their choice during the six-week duration. Parents who registered their children for this program had the option to purchase books or borrow them from the library. Registered participants received weekly phone calls over the weekend. Students were required to write reviews and log the books they read. Students also had the opportunity of sharing the books they read with other participants through a social messaging platform calledWhatsApp. Participants who completed the challenge by sending in book review sheets, book logs, and a summary of their experience, received certificates, and book vouchers to purchase books of their choice. Magical Books continues to implement the Summer Reading Challenge and the Summer Reading Club because they were successful for these children. The Summer Reading Club benefited parents who preferred on-site supervision of their children’s literacy progress while the Summer Reading Challenge was more beneficial to families who traveled for a holiday or lived in another state. The challenge also allowed children to read more books, have more books in their homes, and interact with friends via WhatsApp. However, both the Summer Reading Club and the Summer Reading Challenge programs were only limited to the summer. Magical Books sought to develop other ways to get children to read for pleasure and learn outside the classroom. Through our interactions with participants, the Magical Books team realized that many of the children only read academic-related texts during the school year. This led Magical Books to begin the after-school club. Magical Books After-School Club/Project In 2017, Magical Books began a series of after-school literacy programs in partnership with an elementary school. Unlike the previous iterations, the programs ran from January to December. They included the Literacy Club , the Readers’ Fun Club , and the Friends and Fun Club . Children who participated were between the ages of five and fourteen-years old. After initial contact with the school administration, teachers were given fliers to give to every child in their classroom to take home to parents. Interested parents contacted Magical Books to register their children for the after-school program, which was held on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month at the school’s multipurpose hall. Each session spanned for three hours. The following sections describe each version of the after-school program. These versions are the Literacy Club, the Readers’ Fun Club, and the Friends and Fun Club. The Literacy Club The first cohort of the Literacy Club started in February and ended in May. The second cohort began in June and ended in September. Participants who enrolled in this club attended a total of eight sessions and received a certificate of completion at the end. The Literacy Club consisted of

children between the ages of eight to fourteen years old. The first cohort of 2017 consisted of seven members, while the second cohort consisted of eight children. During the first session, parents completed and submitted a registration form, and additionally, children completed two forms with the assistance of site coordinators. The first form is called a Book Lovers Questionnaire . This questionnaire contained questions designed to learn more about the student’s interest and reading habits (see Appendix A). The other is a Reading Attitude Questionnaire, which assesses children’s perception of reading and their use of reading comprehension strategies (see Appendix B). These surveys enabled the organizers to develop plans for each child as we worked to improve their attitude towards reading and engagement with books. At the Literacy Club , students participated in activities targeted at improving their literacy and critical thinking skills. These activities included read-alouds, silent independent reading, book commercials of their favorite books, educational games, research, writing stories/essays, listening to featured speakers, and borrowing books from the after-school club. During the program sessions, children logged books they had read (see Appendix C). Children also completed a vocabulary sheet to track the difficult vocabulary encountered while reading (see Appendix D). Biweekly, site coordinators completed evaluation forms for each student to track their progress in the club (see Appendix E). At the end of the eight sessions, participants calculated the number of books they read, and a report was given to their parents. Parents also evaluated the program at the end of the event (see Appendix F). Although the Literacy Club had activities targeted at improving children’s literacy skills, participants wanted to play more games. Therefore, we decided to introduce the Readers’ Fun Club. This club solely targeted the interests of the children who participated. The Readers’ Fun Club The Readers’ Fun Club took place within a three-week duration during the Easter break. In the 2017 cohort, eight children between ages seven to fourteen-years-old participated. These included five children from the Literacy Club. At this club, students played educational games (Magical Books, 2017), completed crafts (Magical Books, 2017) , read books they selected, and listened to featured speakers of their choice. On the first day of the club, children were required to create a program plan for the Readers’ Fun Club. This activity revealed the interests of each child. Although this was an exciting activity for them, children participated in authentic literacy activities through the process of creating their own program plan. The process of creating their program plan required them to write and critically think about their interests. It also involved presenting their plans and collaborating with peers to have their ideas included in the program developed by the Program Coordinator.

Reading Matters Writing Matters

A significant highlight for the children at the Readers’ Fun Club was participating in a video conference using Skype to connect

Literacy Matters | Volume 20 • Winter 2020 | scira.org | 21

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