(Me reading to the kids during this session. Pic cred: Huirong)

Reading Buddies with the 4th graders

After quite a lot of planning from our side and trying to synchronize schedules with Ms. Stella’s class, we were able to conduct another session of Reading Buddies.

This time, the organisation of it was relatively different – this was in consideration of one of our members, Sasindu, being absent on this day. Thus, the group agreed to hold reading sessions individually or in pairs with about 5 – 6 kids per group. Something else that we decided to do differently was letting the kids themselves choose the books they wanted to read. This turned out to be a very welcome decision, and the groups very actively chose the books they wanted to read.

The only downside of this may have been the disagreements that started up because of them having different areas of interest, but luckily Huirong and I were able to solve these small disputes by engaging everyone when reading certain books.

Something quite interesting about the group of 4th graders that Huirong and I led was the fact that a majority of them were quite keen on space-related subjects – two of the six even claimed they were reading Stephen Hawking books!

We started off with a storybook on Pluto and its reclassification as a “dwarf planet”, this book was my personal favourite out of all the ones that we read because it was able to convey scientific knowledge whilst still upholding a message of accepting yourself and caring for your friends. Once Huirong and I finished this book, after taking turns reading (and sometimes even letting the kids read), we moved on to a “Space in 30 Seconds” book as voted on by the group. This was a non-fiction book, and although it was interesting, I think that for the next Reading Buddies session we will deviate from purely non-fiction books – as sometimes some kids’ attention drifted when reading out certain astrophysical statistics.

(Huirong reading to the kids. Pic cred: The author)

Although we were quite impressed with the intellect of the group we read to, I believe it was quite a challenge to maintain their attention span and ability to listen – oftentimes, they interrupted the reading to share fun facts of their own. After the session, Ms. Stella admitted that we had a very rowdy group, but I think that overall it was quite an interesting experience!

Learning outcomes:

• LO2 – Challenge and skills 
  • As mentioned above, it was definitely a challenge to keep up the attention span of the entire group – they were much rowdier than the last group of kids that Sasindu and I lead. 
  • However, I believe that despite being difficult at first I did manage to get a hold of leading the group and mediating some conflicts that arose amongst the kids (these were mainly disagreements over what book should be read next).
  • After this experience, I think I have a better understanding of how to conduct our next Reading Session and how to make sure that there was more organisation within the group that we are reading to

• LO4 – Working collaboratively with others
  • Huirong and I had to work together quite a bit and collaborate when carrying out the reading to the 4th graders. Sometimes this included teamwork to make the kids engage more or attempt to have a semblance of organisation when they argue over which book to read.
  • Furthermore, it took collaboration within our entire Reading Buddies group with Ms. Stella to make sure that Session 2 was carried out.

• LO5 – Showing perseverance and commitment
  • I believe that the entire group is very committed to making sure that we carry out Reading Buddies to the best of our abilities. There have been discussions over how to improve this experience and make sure that we are carrying it out in the best way.