“Read like a girl: Establishing a vibrant community of passionate readers” (Stower & Waring, 2018) was such an inspiring article to read. The impact these teacher librarians had on girls in schools to encourage reading for pleasure was simply phenomenal.  To read that the amount of books borrowed in the schools actually tripled over an eighteen month period as a result of this is evidence that encouraging literature for pleasure amongst these girls was effective.

The way in which they exposed girls to different authors and books immediately assisted these girls with exploring different genres to help gain their interest.  There were a range of events conducted at the two schools when this began, including: book launches, a book night with fathers or a significant male, International Women’s Day breakfast and writing workshops to name a few.

These events and strategies immediately give students access to a range of books which encourages reading which also expands on what they are reading as well as the amount, assisting with fluency (Allington, 2014, p.15). Further reading went on to discuss that motivation for reading comes as a result of purely enjoying it (Guthrie, Klauda, & Ho, 2013, p.10) which compliments the sentiments of having access to literature and a wide variety of it so that students can find different genres that appeal to them.  If children are reading voluntarily and enjoying it shows their scores on comprehension tests increase (Howard, 2011, p. 47) which is fabulous that their understandings of texts are clearly improving by simply increasing the amount they read.

In our library, I would love to increase the events held with family members.  I believe that involving the students’ families would be a great benefit as all families would be gaining the same positive experiences at school and hopefully be able to take these back to their homes.  Therefore, one would hope that there would be more discussions around literature in the home which would hopefully lead to further reading for pleasure which consequently assists these students in all facets of their life and learning in the future.

Reference List

Allington, R. L. (2014). How reading volume affects both reading fluency and reading achievement. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 7(1), 13-26. Retrieved from https://www.iejee.com/

Guthrie, J. Klauda, S. & Ho, A. (2013). Modeling the relationships among reading instruction, motivation, engagement, and achievement for adolescents. Reading Research Quarterly, 48(1), 9-26. doi: 10.1002/rrq.035

Howard, V. (2011). The importance of pleasure reading in the lives of young teens: Self-identification, self-construction and self-awareness. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 43(1), 46-55. doi: 10.1177/0961000610390992

Stower, H. & Waring, P. (2018, July 16). Read like a girl: Establishing a vibrant community of passionate readers. In Alliance of Girls Schools Australia. Retrieved from https://www.agsa.org.au/news/read-like-a-girl-establishing-a-vibrant-community-of-passionate-readers/