“I’m excited about the club because I want read English books. I do not have in my home,” one seventh grader in Prizren, Kosovo told English Language Fellow Brooke Leach Grable. Grable had a solution for him: she and primary school teacher Venera Gashi started an English Book Club at Mati Logoreci Primary School. The club has 15 members in sixth and seventh grades.
The club meets each Friday in the school library. Currently the club is reading the book Matilda by Roald Dahl. During the club, the students read parts of the story and do activities to build their comprehension. They even do reading homework!This reading club is important to the students because they have few opportunities to read in English for pleasure: most of their English reading happens from their class workbooks. Both Gashi and Leach Grable will work with the students in the club to think critically about and analyze literature in ways they haven’t been taught.
It’s not just a victory for the students, but for their teachers, too. “Thanks for helping my Book Club dream come true,” Gashi told Leach Grable at the end of day one.