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If your child loves reading but is shy or unwilling to share their ideas or doesn’t have the confidence to do so, Book Club Buddies will help by creating that small, intimate group where everyone is welcome. The classroom can be a noisy and busy learning environment that doesn’t suit all children. Our intimate learning style allows children to feel more confident about expressing their own ideas. They will have the space and time to consider what they want to say and they will be given a chance to participate. No one is overlooked because they are shy or quiet. All ideas are good ideas and everyone is invited to share their thoughts.
We create a nurturing environment for your child to want to join in through encouragement from the teacher and their peers. Positive feedback from other children is a strong motivating force in encouraging reluctant children to participate in discussions and all of our book groups are positive spaces.
Children are also required to read in their own time so they don’t have any time-pressures or the intensity of a classroom environment. They can absorb the story in the comfort of their own homes and come to the book club ready and excited to share their ideas, many of which will be prompted by ongoing discussions as each book club is as unique as the children in it. During each book club “term” we will start and finish a book. This gives the children a sense of pride in having completed a task and in sharing their own ideas in this inclusive environment.
One of the core benefits of being part of Book Club Buddies is learning the key skill of reading comprehension. The simple act of discussing what you have read is the start of reading comprehension. We will encourage your child not just to read the text but to look more deeply at things such as what is being inferred? What questions can we ask? What do we know from what we have read? What does this description tell us about the character? How do we know that? How can we summarise what we have read so far? Questioning what we have read is the key to understanding it more deeply or more comprehensively, hence reading comprehension.
Children will often skim read a text because they aren’t familiar with words, they want to reach the conclusion of the story or because they aren’t enjoying it. We will encourage children to read analytically and to pay close attention to what has been written. By analysing the words on the page, the meaning behind them and by sharing their ideas, children will find a greater love of reading.
We will also encourage your child to look at punctuation and grammar and what we can learn from this. By analysing what they are reading, children will benefit from a deeper engagement with the text. This critical way of reading will allow children to understand the subtext, or what lies underneath a story. This is a vital life skill that children can build on and use to approach any text, fiction or non-fiction, at any age or level.
Being part of a book club is a social experience and we will encourage your child to participate as much as they can in an environment that is informal and friendly, sociable and familiar. We will encourage your child to trust in their own ideas and to feel confident in expressing them. They will learn the key life skills of self-expression and communication. We will also encourage your child to learn about active listening and to be receptive and understanding of other people’s ideas.
Exchanging and expressing ideas is at the heart of Book Club Buddies. Our book clubs are creative rooms where all ideas are welcome, and everyone’s view is respected. We use a range of teacher-led methods to ensure that all children are engaged and that everyone joins in. Children will be exposed to different points of view and will learn how ideas can grow and change in a group dynamic. This is a fun and interactive process that children will love participating in.
Each book club has a unique group of children at its core and they will be coming together over the enjoyment of reading and sharing a story. Even as adults, we look for like-minded individuals to share our ideas and interests with as this brings people together and creates bonds. Children also benefit from this type of interaction and will often form friendships from sharing their ideas with their peers, expressing their love, hatred or admiration of a character or storyline. Strong feelings create strong ideas and we will encourage the children to be immersed in the story so that their passions move off the page into a social learning environment that enriches their love of reading.
Primary children may already be reading for their own enjoyment, however they haven’t learnt the skills to critically engage with the text. In a school setting, children often take part in guided reading which will encourage them to think about different elements such as plot and characters but this is still quite a superficial way of approaching critical thinking.
In Book Club Buddies we look at the text in depth, considering each character’s motivations and the relationships between them. We look at the use of figurative language such as
We encourage your child to understand the message behind the book and to look for a personal connection within the themes of each book such as coping with stress. This will enable them to engage at a deeper level, whilst gaining a greater understanding of language. In this way, your child will develop a greater love of reading.
Being part of a book club allows children to be introduced to new vocabulary in an engaging and exciting way. Reading out loud and hearing new words means that children learn the correct pronunciation and context for these words and gives them the confidence to use them in their own reading and writing. Children also learn how to write grammatically correct sentences and become familiar with a variety of writing styles, all of which informs and extends their own use of language.
Reading aloud allows words to come to life in the form of expression, character, personality, emphasis and drama and draws children into the stories that they are reading, helping them understand the meaning of the words. Book Club Buddies will also help children to understand creative typography and the reasons why words are presented a certain way on the page such as in bold or italics or in a bigger or smaller font. We encourage a love of learning and language, reading and storytelling, creativity and imagination.
