‘Buddies’ bond in reading program
Print Edition
IT must be really difficult to be a young child in the modern world. We as parents and teachers try to encourage our youth to sit and read and escape into the alternative world of a book. Yet all around us the same people asking them to do it are glued to screens and staring numbly and dumbly into a glow, oblivious to others and the events around them. Reading a book must seem alien at times. Step into any Metro in Shanghai and look around. It’s scary.
It appears that the beauty of the book, the smell of the page and the sound of flicking pages is fading. Or is it?
At Harrow International School Shanghai, the English department has just launched the “Buddy Reading Program” where once a week our Year 6 students meet and greet Year 1 students and take them to the library for a beautiful reading session. Our “little buddies” get read to by our “big buddies” and as the weeks go by the emphasis turns to the little buddies to do the reading. They recognize, learn and use new words. They develop their conversational skills. They use the new words and phrases in different contexts and they leave smiling because they have learnt something and been made to feel a part of something. Oh, and we use books. Lots and lots of books.
Our older students gain from the experience too. They develop leadership skills and take steps towards being the well-rounded young men and women we wish them to be as Harrow students. The library is used as it is a center for learning and home to a large selection of books catering for all ages, abilities and interests. The children see that the book they use with their buddy is just one of many that they can choose from and they see a whole world of opportunity and imagination before their eyes.
The aim of the program is nothing especially academic, more to encourage reading a physical book for leisure and pleasure (although the academic benefits are plentiful — but I don’t bore the kids with those details).
The program sparks something that you don’t see so much in 2017 — but it is there! Stephen Fry recently said about the uses of technology in our lives, “Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.” Here at Harrow, we are determined to prove this right.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
