Fall 2017, 3rd place prize winner
Blog Post 1
The past month that I've spent volunteering for Reading Buddies has been nothing but a positive experience. Every Monday from 4:30-6:00 pm, I meet with the most adorable eight-year-old girl named Bona. Bona and her family just moved to Boulder from South Korea four months ago. She is very proficient in not only speaking English, but reading it as well. She loves reading about princesses and her favorite animal is a rabbit. Bona struggles with reading longer paragraphs, she gravitates towards wanting to read books only with a sentence or less on each page. She likes to take turns reading by alternating pages, she reads one page and then I read one page, until we finish the book. Every week when we meet, I ask Bona which books she'd like to choose to read together, or whether she would like to play a game first instead. When we play games, Bona loves to build houses with Legos, or play the popcorn game.
Last week we started creating a main character for a story that we will write together. Bona chose Cinderella as our character, but not classic Cinderella. Bona's Cinderella has an awesome rainbow dress instead. Cinderella loves to draw, so we may create a story where Cinderella's step sisters are jealous of her incredible artistic ability. Bona is excited and engaged when talking and reading about princesses, I am thrilled to start creating her story. Being a Reading Buddy for Bona is fun for both of us. Bona's mom told me how much she loved coming to the program every week. Honestly, it is one of my weekly highlights as well. I'm so thankful that I was able to volunteer this semester for LING1900 in Reading Buddies, it's been a great fit for me.
Blog post 2
I am still enjoying every Reading Buddies session with my buddy, Bona. As I mentioned before in Blog Post 1, Bona is from South Korea and can speak and read english fluently for the most part. She does not like to read very long paragraphs more than one or two sentences. After I began to notice this trend, I have been trying to encourage her by saying something like, "I think you can read this longer page!" or "It won't be hard at all I promise." She is still sometimes resistant, but in our last session she gained the confidence to read much longer paragraphs, some almost going a full page! I am very proud of Bona's accomplishment in doing this, and I'm very happy to see her growth as a reader. I don't know if I can get her to start reading chapter books, because I'm not sure whether or not she is at that level. However, I am excited to see her progression even in just the past few sessions we've read together.
Bona and I have also completed our story that we've written together about Cinderella. It's a charming story about a prince who hosts a drawing party, invites Cinderella and her step sisters, then chooses Cinderella's drawing as the best and invites her to draw with him the following day. I really enjoyed making our story together, and I love how it turned out. Bona also seemed like she enjoyed making it. I am anticipating our presentation of our story on December 11th, and have invited my mom and her coworker who organizes the Reading Buddies program at Castle Pines Library in Castle Pines, Colorado. In conclusion I am still extremely happy with how the Reading Buddies program is going so far, and I can't wait to present our story!
Blog Post 3
As the semester comes to a close, unfortunately so will Reading Buddies. I am sad that I will not be meeting with Bona at the library every Monday evening anymore next semester. However, I think we made a lot of good progress together over the course of the semester. Bona has become more comfortable reading longer pages/paragraphs, we've gotten along great together, and she is learning more english words (I've mentioned previously she is from South Korea). I am hopeful that she will continue to learn and grow as a young reader, and eventually gravitate towards wanting to read short chapter books and eventually leading up to full novels. I am proud of her and all the progress she has made in the Reading Buddies program!
We still have two Reading Buddies sessions left, one is a regular session and one is the final story reading day. The final story day we will present our Cinderella story that we wrote together and finished several weeks ago. I'm sure Bona's mom and dad will come, and I've invited my mom and her coworker. My mom is a librarian at Castle Pines Branch in Douglas County and her coworker organizes the Reading Buddies program there which I have been a part of in the past. I'm so excited to share our story to our families to end the semester, I've had such a positive experience working with Bona and I'm grateful I got the opportunity to do so.