Hello everyone! This semester, my action project will be volunteering at my local library as a reading buddy. As a volunteer reading buddy, I will help kids in elementary school practice their reading skills and help them enjoy reading! I have already started as the first session was last week, and I’m really enjoying it so far!
One complexity I have faced so far is that my reading buddy didn’t show up to the meeting last week. There were 25 older reading buddies and 23 little reading buddies, and mine was one of the 2 that didn’t show up. However, I overcame this problem by working together with a different person and their reading buddy, and I also helped plan out a game for the end of the session (during the last 15 minutes of reading buddies we all play a game such as hangman to end it off on a fun way). Another complexity I have noticed are the language barriers between many of the reading buddies, as a lot of the younger ones are not very strong with English. However, this program is an opportunity to help build their English skills as well, and I am also bilingual so hopefully that can help in the future!
I believe this action is sustainable for many reasons. For one, we don’t read books to the children. Instead, we help them learn how to read them on their own. There is a big difference between doing something for someone and teaching someone how to do things on their own. We also get to know the children and learn about them! Many of the kids in this program have social anxiety, and this is a good way to slowly help them come out of their shell. We also try to stay with the same younger reading buddy for every single session so the kids don’t have to form close bonds with their buddy and have them disappear the next week. For volunteering to be sustainable it cannot be a brief thing,and kids especially can feel abandoned when it is.
I believe this action will provide opportunities. Being able to read is a very important skill in our society, and enhancing your reading skills at a young age can be so beneficial. As I mentioned earlier, this action also helps with learning English, and at a young age it’s much easier to learn a new language. Being fluent in English will provide many opportunities in our society, and being bilingual can be even better. I also know that I’m making a positive impact through the reactions of the kids. Seeing them smile when they realize they pronounced something right or when they read an entire chapter on their own is so rewarding, and it proves that this action is a good thing.
My expert for this action is named Chris, and he is the librarian responsible for the program. Chris has been doing this for a very long time, and he is always there to answer any questions I may have. He also has a lot of experience in working with children, so there is a lot I can learn from him while doing this action project. He is also used to working with kids who don’t know much English, which I don’t have much experience in, so I’m hoping I will gain new skills related to that as well.
Thank you for reading!
This is very cool what youre doing and thank’s for the detailed experience. You’ve been doing a great job at recounting the experience and next time you can try to make it a little bit more concise so you dont need to be repeating what you’ve already typed. But overall, great blog post and keep it up!