Student-Led Book Clubs

Sofia, Elly, Rohit, and Caroline are reading Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan.

Book clubs are great way to get students to have meaningful conversations about the books they read. About two weeks ago we formed our book clubs and things are going great!  The first challenge was to choose a book that appealed to everyone.  Next we selected an amount to read and scheduled a meeting.  It works out that each book club meets twice per week.  At first, I modeled how to facilitate the meetings and now students are getting a chance to run the meetings.  Each member is responsible to complete the reading and come to the meeting with 1 or 2 topics to discuss.  We also spend some time discussing unknown words.  It is so thrilling to watch and hear students talking about what they are reading with such enthusiasm!

Jacob, Ms. Ainura, and Kieran read Stone Fox.

Chloe, Gabby, and Ashley are reading Rules by Cynthia Lord

iHeart Book Clubs!

Ian, Sean, Sam, and Julian are reading Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

My favorite time of year is here—Book Clubs!   Even as an adult, I find it so much more rewarding when I read a book my friends are reading.  So often students will read a book alone, put it back on the shelf and never take the opportunity to talk to someone about it. Book clubs are a great way for students to have conversations about the books with their friends and classmates. Students will be meeting with their book clubs twice a week to discuss the book they chose.  I will also meet with them to help facilitate their meetings in the beginning. Once they get the hang of it each person will have an opportunity to take on the role of facilitator.  So far they are going beautifully!

Mack and Martha are reading The World According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney

Here are some of the benefits:

• Students Set the Schedule-at the end of each meeting they will choose a set amount of pages to read before their next meeting, keeping in mind the time allowed in class.
• Deep Discussion-each club member must come to the meeting ready to talk about the book. This means they bring their sticky notes with their favorite parts, questions, predictions, inferences, etc. Sometimes I also assign them additional  tasks such as character webs, summaries, or to research a topic mentioned in the book.
• Enthusiasm about Books-reading and discussing books with your friends is fun! Books clubs are a great way to help students foster a love for reading.

Laine and Sophie are reading Out of My Mind by Susan Draper.