A local, grassroots reading program driven by passionate, literacy-loving volunteers is letting elementary-aged children learn to enjoy reading while also helping them avoid losing what they learned during the previous school year.
Literacy Lambton’s Summer Reading Buddies program kicked off its third consecutive year earlier this month, linking 30 Big Buddy volunteers with over 50 Little Buddy readers, young learners from grades one to six. The buddies meet face-to-face for half-an-hour each week for ten weeks over the summer at Sarnia Library to read to one another, discover different genres of literature, talk about their interests and have fun, all while practicing their reading skills and building the young readers’ confidence.
The free program, which has received wonderful feedback from volunteers, participants and parents said Literacy Lambton Executive Director Tracy Pound, got its start three years ago, due to the efforts of one volunteer, one journalist and a community full of people willing to step up and help children.
“In May 2022, I had a volunteer show up at our office, a young teacher who said, ‘I actually have time this summer and I’d like to help you with your children’s program, because that’s where my passions lie.’ His name was Brandon and it all started with Brandon,” Pound said.
“He wanted to help me with the children’s program but all I had at the time was the Train Your Brain program which didn’t get started until the fall.
“Brandon and I started talking about it and we came up with the concept of Reading Buddies – for two hours a week, from July to August, he’d meet with buddies, just reading with them, tailoring it to whatever their interests were.”
Though the program was merely a concept in the minds of Pound and Brandon at that point, a
completely unrelated Zoom meeting a day after their initial talk forced them to make their concept into a reality, Pound said.
“I had attended a Golden K Kiwanis meeting, unpacking (Ontario’s) The Right to Read report, which talked about children and balanced versus structured literacy. So, the Kiwanis had invited me, it was on Zoom, and I made the mistake of saying ‘we’re thinking about putting together a Summer Reading Buddies program’,” she said. “And keep in mind at that point I had one volunteer, Brandon, who had walked into my office the day before. Unbeknownst to me, (the Sarina Journal’s) Cathy Dobson was on the call, and I had no idea. That afternoon, Cathy phoned me up and asked me ‘Tracy tell me about your Summer Reading Buddies program.
“She ended up doing a story on the Right to Read report…and what happened immediately after was that my phone lit up with the community wanting to volunteer for the Reading Buddies program,” Pound said, smiling. “We had so many people apply to become Big Buddies, but we only had a few weeks until the summer and I needed them to get police checks, and I had to interview all of them. In the end we ended up pulling together 30 to 40 Little Buddies and maybe 10 to 15 Big Buddies during that first year.”
In the weeks leading up to the Summer Reading Buddies program officially starting, Pound enlisted the help of several community groups and experienced educators to create resources to make it fun and effective.
“This all stemmed from structured versus balanced literacy, which was the lens where I was coming from,” Pound said. “I’m not a teacher or a literacy expert and I was really panicked at being effective. But we got so much help from Central Baptist Church, they had a program called Kids Connection, doing after-school reading. We modeled our program off that one.”
“We also got help from Beth Foster, a Communicative Disorders Assistant, we got help from Donna Poore, a retired teacher who created resources for us to use, and we also had Leanne Barnes who is another recently retired teacher, who is my also wing-woman for our Train Your Brain program.”
The Summer Reading program is all about encouraging the love of reading and helping kids combat the dreaded summer slide – a very real and well-documented phenomenon that negatively affects the academic progress of children who don’t have access to learning resources during their summer break. It is a program based on a few key concepts, Pound said.
“It all starts with trust,” Pound said. “And once the (Little Buddy) feels calm and respected and that their Big Buddy believes in them, you’ve laid the fertile soil. The next bit is confidence, because a lot of learners come in with these (negative) voices…and as the learner hears positive feedback from their tutor, those voices aren’t as relevant anymore.”
”The final piece is fun, because in the end it’s all about them having fun. They’re enjoying
themselves but what they are doing is reinforcing the foundations that they’re learning at school,” Pound continued. “It’s to spark or ignite the joy of reading. Our Big Buddies are there to model lifelong reading, to help those learners know that reading is so much more than the levelled readers you read in class.”
“The beauty of this is that it is unique to each child, and Big Buddies try to different ways to spark the Little Buddy’s interest.”
Big Buddies are not always educators – they are a diverse group of teens and adults who all have an interest in reading, Pound said, and who all want to help spread their love of reading to youth.
They certainly aren’t speech pathologists, and the half-an-hour weekly meetings aren’t meant to be tutoring sessions.
Each year during an orientation session held prior to the summer months, Big Buddies receive some handy tips to help kids improve their literacy skills, they are provided with some well-researched strategies to help engage and encourage their Little Buddies, and each Big Buddy gets a bag filled with tools and resources to help inspire their partners to embrace the love of reading.
Retired teacher Barb Postil has been a Big Buddy with the Summer Reading Program for each of its three years. She said once the Little Buddies feel at ease, they choose books and subjects that are near and dear to them, which encourages them to explore different kinds of literature.
“It’s been rewarding for me – it’s fulfilling to meet new Little buddies and read with them. You know, it’s only ten weeks, but it’s great to see them excited to come back week after week, you know you’ve done something right,” she said. “It’s important to keep kids interested in reading through the summer – it’s something I always advocated both as a parent and as a teacher,” she added.
“Where we read there are levelled readers, so we talk first and find out what they’re interested in,” Postil continued. “You do a lot of reading with them and then as they get more comfortable, they say something like ‘Hey, I’d kind of like to read about robots.’ So, we go over and find a little book on robots, and we read together, or they read it to me, whichever works best for them. The main thing, the big thing, is that they are encouraged to want to read.”
Lambton County Library’s Anna Lakey, Assistant Library Supervisor for Region 1, said that the
program complements the library’s efforts to engage youth, while also providing the opportunity for Little Buddies and their families to see all that the library has to offer.
“We’re thrilled to support Literacy Lambton’s Summer Reading Buddies program by providing space and books,” she said. “The program aligns perfectly with our shared commitment to fostering early literacy and helping children gain confidence in their reading skills.”
“I was able to provide Lambton Literacy with a list of our summer program as well as speak to the group of Big Buddies at their orientation to encourage them to get involved with our Summer Reading Challenge, encourage the parents and children to do the same,” Lakey added. “Every partnership like this that we can be a part of is exciting. We love to see people use the space,
especially kids – we’re thrilled to see kids and parents come in and use the space in ways that they haven’t done before.”
New this year and quite exciting, Pound said, is the involvement of Sarnia Police Services’ Youth in Policing Initiative (YIPI) with the Summer Reading Buddy program. The YIPI program, funded by the provincial government, is aimed at enhancing the link between police and neighbourhoods that they serve. Several representatives from the initiative will be partnering with the Summer Reading Buddies program as Big Buddies.
All in all, the Summer Reading Buddies program has been a resounding success, Pound said. Not only have Big Buddies and Little Buddies built great relationships and have spent hours in the library together reading, but the community has stepped up in a big way to help these young readers out.
“I know that some of our Little Buddies have brought flowers and have made handmade cards for their Big Buddies at the end of the summer. I’ve heard from parents that their children loved coming in and meeting with their Big Buddies,” she said.
“This is a volunteer-supported program and as with everything that Literacy Lambton touches and does, we couldn’t do it without community partners, donors and volunteers. This is just another great example of our community linking arms and doing something really great out of nothing.”
For more information about Literacy Lambton’s Summer Reading Buddies program, visit www.literacylambton.org.