THE IMPACT OF A READING CULTURE IN CHILDREN.
When children read books, they acquire knowledge from the stories they have read.
This year, the kids in our book club have read and discussed one book each month, totaling to eleven books. These books have presented different stories with a variety of themes, characters and plots. The consistency of reading and reviewing books every month has had a positive impact on these children.
- They have had an opportunity to acquire a lot of knowledge from reading these stories from across the African continent.
- More children have taken up borrowing books from our library and reading stories from around the world. We have given them trivia questions on science, geography, history, current affairs and their results reflect their increased global knowledge.
- Due to reading, the children have learned to respect and appreciate other cultures that are different from theirs as they now understand diversity.
- The first six months of the year was dedicated to writing essays. This was to help the kids hone their writing skills and increase their vocabulary. The feedback at the end of the six months was very encouraging as most children reported increased grades in English at school.
- The monthly writing projects not only improved their grammar but also spurred their creativity.
- Being part of a community that nurtures reading is beneficial to kids. They are able to interact and discuss books with other children who love reading. The children have also created new friends in the book club community.
- I noticed that some of the kids were discussing a book series from our library as they enquired who had read which title from the series. This is a positive way of kids motivating each other to read.
A child who has a reading culture will carry it along to adulthood.
We are proud of our teen book club members who have graduated to young adults this year.
Their reading culture has helped them academically in literature and research and I am sure it will help them in their next phase in life. We will be engaging them in the kids book club to nurture the young kids as it was once done to them.
Written by: Monica Nyambura – Founder