Book Buddies is a wonderful opportunity to watch kids improve their reading comprehension and enjoyment! The teens get a chance to log volunteer hours for their high school. Literacy and fun for all!

I have kept a log of observations, challenges, and successes while supervising Book Buddies this summer. At the end of the program, the participants evaluated the program.  Overall, it has been successful in meeting its goals.  Here are the program evaluations from Teens and Kids .

Log for Book Buddies

7/11 | 7/13 | 7/18 | 7/20 | 7/25 | 7/27 | 8/1 | 8/3 | 8/8 | 8/10 | 8/15 | 8/17 | 8/22 | 8/24

Monday 7/11

Our first Book Buddies session for the 2011 season is off to a great start. Dawn Rutherford, Teen Services, Coordinator, has successfully offered Book Buddies for years, where teens help young readers build confidence with their reading skills. The teens received their bright blue Book Buddies T-shirts which are supplied by the Friends of the Library. At least one had a shirt from last year since she volunteered before. After the teens signed their volunteer forms and everyone got their name tags, we had some icebreaker introductions so everyone could get to know each other better. The teens and kids paired off for a scavenger hunt to find different types of library resources like easy readers, chapter books, DVDs, and audio books (among others). After choosing books based on the kids’ interest, they share reading together by taking turns reading and sounding out any challenging words. The teens offer encouragement while the young readers develop their skills. One of the teens did not have a partner to read with so we played a word game together while the others read. Each Book Buddies session ends with educational games and a fun activity. The kids chose different games like Bingo with suffixes and prefixes, Alphabet soup, and Race to Read and they all spread out of the floor to play games. We wrapped it up with hilarious round of Simon Says. Although some of the kids seemed a bit shy at the beginning of the session, they seemed very relaxed and having fun by the end of the first session. I took some photos to document the first session and will include some on the webpage at the end of summer quarter (of those who have completed their photo release forms.

Wednesday 7/13

The new volunteers got their T-shirts. This first Wednesday session was not well attended. I speculated that the morning session may not be a good time for working parents. Some of the teens were not available for Wednesday sessions due to conflicting work schedules. There were four teens and two kids. At first only one child had shown up and then one came in later. The two teens that did not have kids to read with played a game while waiting to see if their Book Buddies partners would show up. We did have one woman show up who would like to enroll her daughter, so she was provided forms to sign up. She thought it might be a great match since their family had recently emigrated from Egypt, and her daughter could use the practice reading in English. She will see if there are no-shows in the Monday session, but would like to join the Wednesday sessions. The two pairs did the reading resource scavenger hunt then settled in to read. Then all of us joined in a game of Bingo (with suffixes and prefixes). One of the teens called the words and the rest tried to guess put together how prefixes and suffixes combine to make new words and there were a couple Bingos. The kids enjoyed the Simon Says activity at closing the session. The teens fill out a record of which books they read together and comment on how it’s going on their clipboards.

Monday 7/18

The mother from Egypt and her daughter came to check if there was an opening today, but we were full and she was asked to join the Wednesday session. This session was well attended, except for one of the teens who happened to be on a camping trip. I paired up with her reader, but I noticed she was a little reluctant to read today. I think it was because the teen she had already bonded with was not there today. She got bored easily with the book we read together, so we went to pick something more interesting. One of the challenges was leaving the other kids unattended while we went into the main part of the library to choose another book. Dawn and I worked out a better way to communicate if I needed to leave the room by just bringing my cell phone with me. After our educational games, we ended the session with a rousing round of musical chairs which was a bit hit with both the teens and the younger kids. After cleanup one of the teens needed to call a parent for a ride home since his car died on the way in. He also needed a little extra help understanding how to fill out the reading log (because of a medical condition, he has a hard time retaining information and staying focused). After explaining how to fill out the log to him, his dad came and he needed to leave in a hurry, and I ended up filling out a new form for him. I’ll make sure he does the next one on his own. One of the kids volunteered to help me clean up the games, and she suggested that one of these times we play Twister. She recommended that we start with four players, and then as people got out new ones begin.

Wednesday 7/20

Wednesday is still not well attended with four teens and three kids. I noted that the kid whose partner did not show up on Monday was not here today (I called and left her a message after the session to welcome her back). Today’s session seemed a bit chaotic because at first only one kid showed up. We played a game while waiting for more kids to show. Then two kids showed up late. Generally, I think it goes smoother when people are prompt. We didn’t do the ice breaker since there was only one child to begin with and the teens already knew each other. There was one new teen today, so he was given his T-shirt today. The new kids really enjoyed reading today. We all played Bingo and then musical chairs to close the session. One of the mom’s did not return to pick up her child until 15 minutes late. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving her alone, so she helped me clean up and we made a couple calls to her mom. Her mom’s voicemail box was full, so we just waited. After about 15 minutes her brother showed up to come get her, so I went out to the car to remind the mom about the importance of picking up right on time.

Monday 7/25

We had great attendance with only one teen missing and a couple kids late. I mentioned to the parents the imporantace of picking up being on time. In terms of paperwork, one teen finally returned the completed application and I gave her a photo release form. When all the kids are reading it sounds as busy as a beehive while they read their stories and sound out the hard words. They have chosen a wide variety of books ranging from “Where the Wild Things Are”, “”Do Dog Go”, “What a Hungry Puppy”, and “Duck on a Bike”, “Misty of Chincoteague”, and one of my favorites “Green Eggs and Ham.” I observed several teens checking the reading comprehension by asking questions about the story and having the kids tell them about what is happening in the story. The kids seemed to enjoy the educational games after reading. We played “Alphabet Soup”, “Race to Read,” “Bingo”, and Chip-O a (read, rhyme and match game). The ending activity was Duck, Duck, Goose and it seemed like most of the kids enjoyed it. Wednesday 7/27 As usual, Wednesday is a quiet day for Book Buddies. We had three kids and four teens. A new child had her first day today. We had our circle with introductions (name, which school we go to, and what we want to be when we grow up). I found it interesting that two of the children want to be veterinarians when they grow up. Tardiness is still a problem, as one child came in 20 minutes late. But overall, the kids seem to be bonding well with their teens and enjoying the reading. I’m happy to watch these children build confidence with reading as they work with their Book Buddies.

Monday 8/1

Attendance was pretty good today. All the kids showed, but a couple teen volunteers were not there. Since we were short-handed, I took this as an opportunity to work with one of the kids. We all paired off to read after our ice breaker circle, where we introduced ourselves and named our favorite food. I remembered that my reader had read quite a few books last time so I thought that maybe she was picking books below her capability. We chose a variety of both easy and more challenging books. We she finished all of her books, I didn’t want to leave the room to pick more from the library because I couldn’t leave the rest of the group unattended, so I was able to find a book in the box that she was interested in. Our last book was Frog and Toad, which was challenging, but she understood almost all of the words and only needed help sounding out a few. The goal was to pick something to challenge her reading skills but not to make it so hard as to be discouraging. My own kids used to love the Frog and Toad books when they were little, so it was fun to help another child with reading this book. When we broke for games, they enjoyed playing Alphabet soup and bingo. Our ending activity was hot potato, which was fun for everyone. Overall, I think the kids are enjoying Book Buddies and are making real progress in their reading skills.

Wednesday 8/3

There was a perfect ratio of teens to kids today with an even match of four of each. During the icebreaker everyone named their favorite foods. Just like the diversity of participants, there was a diversity of favorite foods: from pizza to empanadas to sushi. The kids and teens appear to be bonding with each other and enjoying their reading time together. I’m happy to see some of the kids going out of their reading comfort zone and trying some more challenging books. Bingo (with prefixes and suffixes) was the favorite education game for the day. After seeing them play this repeatedly, they are getting the clues faster and memorizing some of the most common prefixes and suffixes. These educational games are another way of strengthening their reading and associating reading with fun.

Monday 8/8

Since there were seven children and only six buddies, I had the opportunity again to work one-on-one with one of the children. She is doing a wonderful job of reading. Some of the harder words to sound out had “extra consonants which were not phonetic. While observing the educational game time, I noticed that one of the challenges for the kids in Bingo (with prefixes and suffixes) was trying to figure out when to use “im” “un” or “dis” since they all have the same meaning of “not.” But most of them have been able to memorize when to use each prefix combination so the words make sense. Then for our activity we played musical statues. Since I anticipate we will be short on teens next Monday, I’ll ask a couple of the kids from the Wednesday group if they can come next Monday.

Wednesday 8/10

Since this is a small group to begin with, it was even smaller when one of the kids didn’t show up at all and one was very late. I played Jenga with the unmatched volunteers while they waited for their kids to show up. As I went around the room during reading, I noticed a general pattern with the kids that they have to sound out fewer words than at the beginning of Book Buddies five weeks ago. One of the kids picked a new game to play, and we all enjoyed the word dominoes, making new words out of beginning and ending combinations. Out ending activity, musical statues was a big hit. I think the kids enjoy being active after an hour of being sedentary.

Monday 8/15

It’s hard to believe that we are near the end of the program already, because it has gone by so quickly. When I told the kids about reading to the dogs next week, they were excited. One of the teens is allergic to dogs so she will try to stay but not get too close to them. They are also looking forward to the pizza party next week. One of the challenges today was there were more kids than teenagers even though someone from the Wednesday group was able to fill in. In order to remedy the situation, I tried working with two kids at a time. I had each one take turns reading, but I had the more advanced reader take a paragraph at a time of dense text because her book was more challenging in terms of word level and the other reader take a few pages of less text. I think they it worked out pretty evenly in terms of attention, but the optimal situation is to have one teen per child and this is the way Book Buddies has been structured. Again, attendance and promptness makes the program run more smoothly. I noticed that one of my kids kept checking the clock and asking when we were going to play games. As with most of the kids, I think that they really look forward to the educational games even though they enjoy the reading portion of Book Buddies. Both the kids and teens filled out an evaluation survey today, and I will be compiling the results. Only one parent filled out a survey so far, and the rest will hopefully return them next week.

Wednesday 8/17

I will have the kids and teens fill out their program evaluation forms today and make sure that their parents receive an evaluation form as well.

Monday 8/22 and Wednesday 8/24

Today we will have Reading with Rover with two visiting dogs for the kids to read to followed by a pizza party to wrap up the summer season of Book Buddies. It has been a pleasure working with this wonderful group of teens and kids.