During the summer at the Red Hook library young kids get the chance to improve on their reading skills in an interactive and fun way in a group setting.
Team up to Read is happening this summer at the Red Hook Library for the first time and is a free program designed to enhance comprehension and fluency in the reading experience among kids ages five to nine. Red Hook is one of the 19 branches in Brooklyn offering this program.
Kimberly Grad, who is the Team up to Read Program Director and the Coordinator of School Age Services at the Brooklyn Public Library, spoke about why this special and helpful program, which could be offered in any location according to Grad, is happening in Red Hook.
“Red Hook is a great location for this program,” Grad said. “Kids everywhere need to learn how to read. Red Hook is just one of our great locations. We have a great staff there who is interested in offering this program.”
Team up to Read was first started overall in 2018 when a grant was awarded. It was developed into a summer reading program shortly after and in its initial year was offered in 21 different locations.
A goal is to link the learning that happens at school and the learning that happens at home in these sessions for developing readers so that they can have this extra outlet to improve.
“We hired a consultant to do the curriculum, so that kids would find that this material we were teaching would really be a bridge between the learning that takes place at home and the learning that takes place at school,” Grad said. “So that we could offer a complimentary learning experience.”
The desire is that kids ages five to nine who attend in Red Hook as well as other locations will return to school as stronger overall readers then when they left school in June.
“This program is designed to reinforce the reading skills that kids have picked up by the end of the school year and by reading over the summer they can come back stronger in the fall,” Grad said.
Six units were originally established for this program in efforts to become a stronger reader, and each session that Team up to Read has includes a different focus.
According to Grad, summer reading is essential towards tackling what is known as the summer slide. This program was originally just in the fall and spring but was expanded to the summer.
“I developed a summer edition program that is basically three different units again working on comprehension and fluency,” Grad said. A number of branches, about one third, have scheduled them into their plan.”
Team up to Read was offered in Red Hook on Tuesday, July 16 (Making Connections, art focused) and was offered on Tuesday, July 30 (Interactive Storytelling with puppets).
Coming up Team up to Read will happen on Tuesday, August 6 from 3:00 to 4:00 pm (Be Curious theme); Tuesday, August 13 from 3:00 to 4:00 pm (Making Connections, art focused); Tuesday, August 20 (Interactive Storytelling) and finally in the last session before school starts again Interactive Storytelling will be offered again on Tuesday, August 27 from 3:00 to 4:00 pm.
They don’t have exact data on how much the kids improve during the sessions since they don’t measure reading levels like teachers do in school, but the point of this program is to enforce and augment the skills they have.
The instructor of Team up to Read (Kat Savage in Red Hook) either chooses from a collection of books that Grad has sent or can choose appropriate books on their own. During each session a book will be read aloud and then that will be followed by discussion and a project.
“The book selection for Be Curious topic is one where we need a book with a strong plot, a little bit of intrigue or maybe a wordless picture book,” Grad said. “For the Making Connections topic, the book that is chosen would be something that has strong stories that a child can connect to, an experience they might have had that helps them with their comprehension.”
The third offering is the Interactive Storytelling where kids work on their own storytelling.
“For the Interactive Storytelling session, we look for books that have a strong story line but also characters that the kids can use in forming their own storytelling experience of the book,” Grad said.
During the Interactive Storytelling session on July 30, there were two kids and their mother at Team up to Read with Savage. According to Savage, the most amount of kids that had been at a session this summer has been six.
On July 30, there were introductions where the kids named their favorite characters overall, Savage read Zomo the Rabbit by Gerald McDermott aloud and then the three participants and Savage spent time using supplies provided to create puppets based on characters in the book.
The kids decided to make their own versions of characters from the book to tell their own story. At the end of the session, each kid got to take home a book of their choosing that was left over from the pilot session.
Some suggested books for Team up to Read include Draw! By Raul Colon, It’s Only Stanley by Jon Agee, Shh! We Have a Plan by Chris Haughton, Puddle by Hyewon Yum, Quackers by Liz Wong, A Different Pond by Bao Phi and Little Red and the Very Hungry Lion by Alex T. Smith.
Through these various session themes the goals are to: give ideas about how to experience reading, get the kids to stop and ask questions and to think about what’s going on in the story, to make connections between their lives and the story at hand and to improve storytelling skills.
During Interactive Storytelling, the kids will make puppets based on the characters in the book and then they work on retelling the story using puppets.
The kids might re-read the story with new voices or use the puppets to re-tell the story from memory.
For Making Connections, the activity is watercolor centered. According to Grad, the kids are given art supplies and can express how they feel about a book in a piece of art.
During the Be Curious session of Team up to Read, the kids ask questions about the book. They ask questions and the program leader will gauge their comprehension.
“They also talk about their own reading experience where they might talk about where they like to read or who they like to read with,” Grad said. “That becomes another type of artistic response.”
In each session there will be a read aloud of the story, a discussion of the story and then an activity related to the story.
When asked about how many kids could come to Team up to Read, Grad did not put a limit on the amount of kids who could attend.
Team up to Read is designed to be a fun and interactive program that encourages a lifelong love of reading. Parents or caregivers of the kids are encouraged to attend as well.
In addition to Team up to Read, another similar reading-based program that happens at the Red Hook Library this summer is an individual reading coach. Kids will be able to get one-on-one instruction on various days.
“It is a 15-20-minute session where a child works directly with a reading coach on the reading process,” Grad said.
The summer reading coach will be at the Red Hook Library to give one-on-one help on August 2 and August 9. The coach will be there from 3:00 until 6:00 pm on each of those days.
