Saturday Family Book Club
by Meg Coffee
For the past two Saturdays myself (Meg Coffee), Alejandra Ramirez, and Anna Harris have led a family reading group at the Watts Community Learning Center Elementary School in South LA. This opportunity came about when I toured the facility a few months ago. The principal expressed a need for volunteers to help with the school’s reading program and I immediately thought of our members and the Advocacy committee.
The first “Saturday Family Book Club” was held on April 6th from 10-11am. The best part of the experience was to see families who live and go to school in a tough part of Los Angeles come together for an hour and just read together. We had about 15 participants fromkindergarten to middle school. We took turns reading page by page, and it was great to see how encouraging everyone was when someone struggled with a word or phrase, and it was inspiring to see how well many of the students could already read. This past Saturday, we had a group of third-grade girls participate in the group who were so much fun. They shared books, read their pages as a team, and had lots to express about their favorite parts of the books.
We are planning to continue the “Saturday Family Book Club” once a month. If you would like to join us,please contact Meg Coffee: secretary@awaplusd.org.