Hello and welcome back to my blog 🙂
Today, I will be talking about how my action project has been going and what I will be doing next to continue supporting my action.
As mentioned in my previous posts, for my semester 1 action project, I chose to volunteer as a reading buddy at the Coquitlam Public Library. As a reading buddy, my responsibilities include reading with my little buddy, who is in elementary school, and helping him develop a love for reading! Till now, we have had 4 sessions, although I was only able to make it to 3 of them. I have been looking forward to Thursdays every week now because of how much I love the Reading Buddies program. My little buddy now feels more comfortable with me, which makes it easier for him to read with me and for us to talk about the texts as well. The two ways I am involved in each session include reading with my buddy and playing the game at the end of the session. The first 45 minutes is all about reading any book the little buddy is interested in. The last 15 are when we play a game as a group (hangman, charades), and the big buddies help the little buddies come up with their answers. I love helping my buddy in both aspects of the program and look forward to this week as well!
Successes I have had include being able to gain the trust of my little buddy through these last 3 sessions. In the first two sessions, we would read but I could tell he wasn’t as interested as I would have wanted him to be. This meant talking to him in the middle about topics of interest to help him stay focused. At the last session, he mentioned how he wanted to be the first to get there so we could start right away! It made me really happy because it made me know he was excited to come every week, which made me believe I was doing something right. Another example of a success I have had was also at the last session, when I noticed my buddies improvement when it came to participating in the group game at the end. In the first two sessions, he was more hesitant but as he started feeling comfortable in that environment, he knew he could be himself while participating in those games. I was very proud of him for guessing the hangman words right without my help!
A specific example of a challenge I have faced would be making my buddy understand his level of reading instead of what he would like to read the most. At the second session, he was really excited to read Pokemon books but that was a little above his level. Although he was able to read most of the words on the page, he was having trouble understanding what it meant because he had to take time to figure out what the words were first. It took me a couple minutes to make him understand that maybe this book is a little advanced and looking for a shorter, easier book on the same topic could be a better idea. This worked great because we were able to find a book he found interesting and did not want to stop reading.
I continue volunteering as a reading buddy for another 2 weeks, which is when this program ends. I have loved volunteering as a reading buddy because of how happy it makes me to be able to form a friendship with my little buddy and help him develop a love for reading! As the spring sessions start, I will continue volunteering my time, as it is something I truly enjoy.
Thank you so much for reading my post today. If you have any questions about the program or my blog post, I would love to answer them!
Anannya B