By Renee Martinez, Founder of Raising Boys World
On Friday, I had my son’s parent-teacher conference. I was really interested to learn more about what he’s doing in his second grade-reading group. He’s in a book club. He’s talked about how much he likes his book club, but I didn’t realize just how it worked.
Book clubs aren’t just for adults. Regardless of your child’s reading ability, book clubs for children can help foster a lifetime love of reading.
At school, his teacher chooses a book that challenges the children at the appropriate level while proving them material for an interesting and interactive discussion. Sometimes she lets them have snacks during book club. This is a big bonus with my son.
Here’s how it works: each child receives the book and a workbook. The workbook has a worksheet for each chapter. Each worksheet is the same; five squares with one of the following words (prediction, connection, words, summary and club question). As they read the book, they complete the worksheets for each chapter. The students write the information that corresponds with the appropriate word on yellow post-its that they place on the square on the worksheet. It was great to see the work my son had done. For example, in the word box, he had the word scepter and his club question was really well thought out.
Given that current statistics suggest that boys are at a disadvantage in academics compared to girls, I think it’s imperative that we as parents help our sons to develop a love for reading and school at a young age. A program such as this one puts a new spin on the traditional reading group.
I started thinking about how much my son enjoys his book club and thought why not do something like this over the summer as a mother/son (or father/son) book club with some friends? How much fun would that be?! Each month they could meet and have snacks and discuss the book together. It would be a wonderful bonding experience with your son and a nice opportunity to interact with his friends. They could use a similar worksheet – but as a review for the entire book verses for each chapter.
Organizing a summer boy’s book club would not only help the boys continue to read over the summer and maintain their skills, but it might help keep boredom at bay. Here are a few additional resources for starting a book club and selecting the books:
About the Author: Renee Martinez consults and speaks professionally on social media marketing, integrated marketing communications, public relations and branding. She is the president of Ruby Marketing Communications (www.rubymarcom.com), a boutique marketing communications company that specializes in providing branding, social media strategy and integration, and creative services. Her blog (www.lisac95.sg-host.com), provides resources on everything marketing and social media for her active audience.
Renee has contributed as a featured monthly columnist in the monthly jewelry industry publication, JCK, on matters related to internet marketing as well as in InStore Magazine as a featured blogger where she writes about developing effective marketing strategies for the jewelry industry using social media. She is the founder of: Social Media Biz Summit (www.socialmediabizsummit.com), the first large-scale SM conference to come to Buffalo, NY; #jewelrychat, a weekly twitter chat for the jewelry industry and www.RaisingBoysWorld.com. Renee teaches social marketing courses at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY for the business school as well as offers small group social media marketing training and educational seminars for businesses in Western New York and beyond.
Renee has dabbled in the internet marketing arena since the early 90′s and is not ashamed to call herself a “marketing geek”. From chatting in AOL, “sharing” music on Napster, and teaching HTML classes before it was considered “cool” to developing comprehensive social media strategies, effective public relations campaigns and managing online communities (most recently Chevy Girls Buffalo).
She enjoys being able to help people find their voice online and to create buzz about their product or service that will give them the results they desire.
Renee can be found on Twitter (@reneemmartinez) and Facebook (http:/www.facebook.com/RubyMarCom).
