Hon. Earl Rowe P.S.
Forest of Reading Program
Our Reading Groups
Our school librarian runs “The Forest of Reading” Silver Birch Fiction and Maple programs during both recesses from late November to end of March. Many students join the club to stay out of the cold but in reality they are collaborating with readers from different grades and enjoying books from our great Canadian authors. We did not participate in “The Festival of Trees” with all the participants of teachers, librarians and other staff and parents.
The program is facilitated by the librarian and all resources have been purchased with funds from our School Parent Council. We have a motivated leader and lots of students motivated to read and engage in discussions about what they are reading.
Benefits of the Reading Group
The benefits of this reading program are:
-make new friends
-empower friends to lead, learn and inspire others to read
-all students have a voice to share their thoughts and ideas
-select books based on interest
-learn or improve reading comprehensions skills
-gain confidence in reading and fluency
-increase in the motivation to read
-develop deeper thinking skills
-inclusive group
Next Steps for the Reading Club
-The next steps for our reading program could be to offer students to participate in virtual book clubs within our school board (@SCDSB bookclubs) Thanks to Deb McCallum and other dedicated librarians, we have the “SCDSB Book Club” The club’s site has some innovative ideas that students can apply to the books they are reading:
- Blogging reflections & Book Reviews
- Google Apps for Education
- Book Trailers on iMovie
- Twitter accounts for characters in a book
- Publishing stories and poetry into an eBook
- Classroom Newsletters & website dedicated to authors and books, characters too!
- Use amazing programs including ‘Explain Everything’, 'Haiku Deck'; Google Docs & iBooks where students can explain what they are doing in math to teach another group of kids, or show to their parents.
- Publish work anonymously
- Use of various presentation formats to demonstrate a continuum of learning
- Drama Presentations turned into i Movies with Green screen
- Skype with an author
- Create infographics, or other visual representations of data and information in books and about books
- Create and record music soundtrack