Reading groups

We arrived at the library early this afternoon and were met by 30 eager kids ranging from ages 2-12. We split them into 5 smaller groups by age and grade and picked 3 older girls (12 year-olds) to be group leaders for the young kids while each of us took a group of older kids. It actually worked out really well. The three older girls were natural teachers. One of the girls, Sheila, picked out an animal atlas for her group and taught them the names of all the various animals and insects. Sometimes we’d catch the sound of the kids shouting names of different animals in unison as she flipped through the pages. At one point, the kids exclaimed “SPIDER MAN!!” Looking over, we could see that Sheila was pointing to a picture of a real spider. The other two girls, Esther and Michelle also turned out to be perfect assistant librarians. When her group started to get a bit restless, Esther set them up with paper and colored pencils.

However, even with the help of the older girls, the younger kids began to get pretty rowdy and loud as the day went on. After a couple of hours we told them to go home for a little while to get some lunch and come back later. While the little kids were gone we had a chance to have a reading group with the 4 older girls, Esther, Michelle and Sheila (all in class 6) and another Esther (class 5). We had 4 copies of a Junie B. Jones book so we gave one to each girl and had them take turns reading a page aloud while the others followed along. After each chapter we had the girls tell us one thing that happened in the chapter. The Esther’s usually answered by reading sentences from the book but Michelle and Sheila gave good summaries, showing that they fully understood what they had read. Later, some older kids (friends of the girls) came and picked books for themselves. We helped them pick out books according to their interests and grade and they all sat quietly reading. It actually felt like a real library with all of the kids reading independently.

^from left,Esther,Michelle,Sheila and Esther

>some of the kids posing in front of the main gate of their public school, Nairobi River (over 1,600 students are enrolled there)