1.) Where are you with your action?
Hello everyone! To recap once again, my action project is volunteering at my local library as a reading buddy. As a volunteer reading buddy, I help kids in elementary school practice their reading skills and help them enjoy reading! In my last blog post, I mentioned that the 2023 sessions had ended. Now, I am volunteering for the 2024 session! The majority of kids are new to the program, but there are some returning kids from last year. Last year, I kept having to change reading buddies because the number of older buddies and little buddies was uneven. Now, I have the same buddy consistently which I am super excited about!
2.) What are some successes that you have had?
A success I have had is being able to get to really know my reading buddy since I will have the same one for the entire program! Since I will be having the same buddy throughout the entire duration of reading buddies, I will have much more time with her! So far I have been able to get a pretty basic understanding of where her reading level is at. She is in kindergarten, so she’s definitely a beginner. I’ve learned that she enjoys being read to, but she doesn’t enjoy learning how to read. She is also a dancer, so we found lots of picture books about ballerinas which she really liked reading! Also, unlike the buddies I’ve had in the past, she is a huge extrovert, so it’s been very easy to get to know her and have her feel comfortable around me which is awesome!
3.) What are some challenges that you have faced? Have you been able to overcome them?
So far, since I am still at the beginning of the duration of this program, I haven’t really encountered any challenges. Everything has gone smoothly and according to plan as of right now. However, I’m sure it will be a big change to have the same buddy every week, and I’ll definitely have to learn ways to keep her engaged throughout the entire thing. One good thing about constantly alternating buddies last year was that I was able to find different books to read with each kid. Now that I will have the same buddy consistently, I will have to keep finding different books related to dancing, so I hopefully I can help her branch out and find new topics she’s interested in!
4.) What are you doing next and why?
This was my final blog post for this action project, so my next step will be my presentation. Thank you for following along with my action project!