**Editor Note : This article is extracted from Making Bookworms out of Teens: A Neverending Story. By May Chua and Norhashimah Azli. First published by IFLA 2014 Lyon.**
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Reaching out to teenagers through Read@School
Read@School was established in 2013 to reach out to youths in schools. The support of the Ministry of Education in Singapore helped the programme take root, and to date, we have 260 schools on board. Read@School works closely with the schools to provide reading programmes for their students throughout the school term. A total of 28 reading programmes are available for schools to choose from. Schools get customised suites of programmes, based on their relevance to the school syllabus, students’ interest and how Read@School can support the schools’ current reading initiatives to strengthen their reading culture.
The programmes are crafted by librarians, based on themes suggested by schools and current trends in young adult literature. Even though librarians take into account the schools’ academically-inclined requirements and suggestions, they also ensure that the content is delivered through more enjoyable elements such as games and interesting activities. The aim is to achieve an enjoyable learning experience that nurtures a love of reading. By creating a more relaxed setting for the activities, students are able to express themselves openly and actively participate in book-related discussions.
Some of the more popular programmes are “School Reading Ambassador”, “Book Buzz”, and “Read, Reap, Write”. Programmes that are centred on genres, such as “Book Buzz”, help expand students’ reading diets beyond the types of books they are usually drawn to. Book lists that recommend titles from the same genre are distributed to students for them to explore. “School Reading Ambassador” is popular among schools because the workshop trains students to become reading ambassadors in their school, and harnesses the power of peer influence. During the workshop, students learn and practice skills and techniques for writing book reviews, storytelling, book talking, setting up book displays and organising book clubs. After the workshop, students are tasked by their teachers to share their love of reading. For example, they are asked to write book reviews of current reads and put them up in the school library for other students to read. “Read, Reap, Write” allows students to learn how to deal with issues through selected extracts from books. Most of the packages focus on teenage problems such as cyberbullying, identity and peer influence. Students hold discussions about what they would do if they were in similar situations, and complete activities related to the themes in the book.
In order to capture the attention of students and engage them better, we include games, music and videos in our presentations and workshops. These approaches are very appealing to youths and make good tools to drive home the messages we want to send. In “Read, Reap, Write”, we often play games with the students – for instance, we make them pass on a secret message through the “Broken Telephone” game. We also create book trailers to play during the “Book Buzz” book talk sessions. In promoting the book “I’ll Be There” by Holly Goldberg Sloan, which features the classic song of the same title by the Jackson 5, the librarians play a segment of the song as an introduction. Many of the teenagers have heard the song sung by the late King of Pop Michael Jackson, and often list the playing of the song as the most enjoyable part of the programme.
Enticing teenagers to read, and share their favourite reads, is challenging. One new initiative that NLB has launched to engage teenagers in their own playground – the digital world – is “discoveReads”, an online reading portal focused on peer-to-peer sharing of good reads, and the creation of a community of readers. This is achieved through the use of social media tools and gamification elements to promote reading amongst the digitally savvy students.
Launched in January 2014, “discoveReads” allows users to:
(1) Discuss and recommend books
(2) Upload book trailers
(3) Design book covers
(4) Create alternate book endings
By completing specific reading-related tasks, such as uploading book reviews, students can unlock virtual achievement badges to display on their “discoveReads” profile and earn bragging rights. To allay the concerns of parents and teachers regarding cyber security, measures have been put in place on discoveReads. One example is allowing users to flag offensive content or comments for the website administration, and automatically censoring abusive words.
Challenges librarians face: Recommending “good” reads
- Is there such a thing as a “good” or “bad” read?
When selecting books to promote to the students, we have pondered the question of whether there is such a thing as a “good” or “bad” read. Educators and parents often refer to “good” reads as those widely considered to be in the literary canon; works that have withstood the test of time. “Bad” reads, as defined by Radway (1986), often refer to formulaic writing and books with mass-appeal. She argues that even “bad” reads do sometimes provide a fruitful reading experience. We are also of the opinion that a book is a good read as long as there is something we can take away from it. Some books may not be seen by proponents of the literary canon to have any value, but can still provide much-needed illumination or comfort to a reader, or can be stepping stones to titles that are deemed to have higher literary value.
We, like Wilhelm (2013), believe that “home and school should be places where readers are nurtured and supported and assisted to create their own active reading lives and agendas, connected to their own life journeys”, as opposed to telling our youth what they should or should not be reading.
However, in Singapore we face the same problem highlighted by young adult author and editor Marc Aronson in an article in ALA’s American Libraries, “Teens and the Future of Reading”. Many adults have an ideal concept of what constitutes reading, which usually does not extend to the typical teen’s reading diet – a combination of fiction, non-fiction, online content and assigned reading. We have to recognise that teens like to read other types of content – including graphic novels and interesting non-fiction titles – on top of the usual fiction and literary works that many parents consider “real” reading materials.
All the above-mentioned factors make it hard to select books to use in our reading programmes and recommendation lists. An additional challenge is that it is sometimes difficult to find good books that do not have inappropriate references and/or themes, e.g. glamourisation of suicide or sex.
So how do we select books to meet such a broad spectrum of expectations and requirements while taking into consideration what teens themselves like? To compound the problem, there is pressure from some teachers and parents who expect us to recommend only critically-acclaimed reads and/or award winners. And then there are schools at the other end of the spectrum who accept most recommendations – including graphic novels – “as long as the child is reading a book”. Our approach to reconciling the wants of all parties is to include a variety of books in our recommended reading lists.
Typically, our lists would include award winners, graphic novels, interesting non-fiction titles as well as books that subscribe to current trends in young adult literature, e.g. dystopia. To find books that appeal to teenagers, we use many tools. We search GoodReads, online book reviews written for and by teenagers, and include the latest print-to-screen titles. We also attend conferences to learn more about and keep track of current tastes in young adult literature. So far, our strategy has been working and we have received positive feedback about the books we recommend.
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