Move over, Oprah’s Book Club. Community reading programs involving adults, youth, and children have been popping up in communities across the country in recent years. From suburban Minnesota to metropolitan Ohio, communities of all shapes and sizes have made literacy a priority. Here are three very different community reading programs and how they make their cities better places for kids to grow up.
Our Community Reads: Hopkins, Minnesota
The first Our Community Reads program took place during the 2004-2005 school year. The idea was generated by the Hopkins Community Coalition, formerly known as Reduce the Use, as a strategy to educate adults about parenting teens. The book read has taken place every year since then, and has always used a book to engage parents and adults in the community. Last fall, the book Sparks: How Parents Can Help Ignite the Hidden Strengths of Teenagers was chosen to correspond with the Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors survey given in the community in 2009.
Learn more about sparks and why they’re important
Along with the book read, Hopkins holds a community forum with the author of the program’s chosen book, which usually draws 200-300 people. Within the first month of the reading program, evening book discussion groups are offered to everyone in the community. The discussion groups are offered for families with kids of various ages: early childhood, elementary, and secondary (7th-12th grade). There are also school staff groups that meet over lunch to talk about the book.
In order to make the discussions accessible to as many people as possible, all book discussion questions are posted online and Our Community Reads encourages community members to form their own discussion groups.
“I think it’s a great tool for reaching busy families and parents, so they can do it at home on their own time,” says Parent Education Supervisor Cathy Rude. “They can gain from it individually or gain the power of being able to talk to their spouse.”
Learn more about the Hopkins Community Coalition
The program seeks to organize the entire community around one book, so that the book’s message is universal throughout the community and inspires change. “Our goals were to engage parents, engage other community members, and help build upon asset building,” says Brenda Badger, Hopkins Community Coalition Coordinator.
The focus of this year’s book read was on reducing risky behaviors. According to Badger, “The whole idea of sparks was something that helped ignite activity within our drug-free communities coalition.” Reading Sparks gave adults in the community a tool that allows that they could use in their work with children and families.
Our Community Reads has established a program that not only unites their community, but also shows parents, teachers, and other adults how to create a better place for kids to grow up. By taking advantage of the connections built through the program, Hopkins has created an asset-building community, and one in which kids’ sparks are nurtured by many caring adults.
Silicon Valley Reads: Santa Clara County, California
When a city organizes a successful community reading program, it’s an accomplishment worth celebrating. Organizing a reading program across fifteen cities is a feat few communities have come close to equaling. But Silicon Valley Reads of Santa Clara County, California has done just that. The program’s reach includes 15 cities within the county, giving the program a pool of thousands of potential participants in many different age groups.
But Silicon Valley Reads wasn’t always this big. In fact, the idea started with one member of the community who brought the idea to the county office of education, which oversees all of the community school districts. From there, the program expanded to include public libraries.
When the program started, it had two central goals: to be active region-wide and to include multiple age groups. At first, only high school students and adults were involved in the reading program, and books were chosen based on their applicability and accessibility to both groups. Both fiction and non-fiction books have been featured. “For the most part, they are books that are not classics,” says Silicon Valley Reads Coordinator Diane McNutt. “They’re books that probably not a lot of people have read.”
Find out how to encourage kids to read
In 2009, six years after Silicon Valley Reads started, the program decided to include younger children by incorporating elementary-school-level books with the same general theme as the adult book in the program. Now, a picture book is chosen for kids in grades K-3, and a young reader book for those in grades 4-8. Through a partnership with First 5, California’s Children and Families Commission, the program also added a pre-K book this year.
In addition to selecting books for the program each year, the program hosts several organized activities, including panel discussions, author appearances, and various other interactive and engaging events. Five thousand people have participated in one or more of the program’s events, which are held at libraries, colleges, community centers, and other public venues. Since the introduction of the children’s books, Silicon Valley Reads has been holding events focused on children and families in addition to the traditional adult-focused ones.
“Our goal is to inspire people to read more, to appreciate literature. We try to select a topic that relates to Silicon Valley and is provocative enough to prompt dialogue and discussion of those themes among friends, family, coworkers, and the community,” says McNutt.
Visit the Silicon Valley Reads Web site
Silicon Valley Reads has met—-and exceeded-—this goal many times over. And in addition to promoting literacy and critical thinking, the program has shown the rest of the country that all it takes to start a large-scale, successful program is for one dedicated person to take the first step.
On the Same Page: Cincinnati, Ohio
Another program that focuses on being intergenerational is On the Same Page, Cincinnati’s community reading program. This “one community, one book” program has been connecting adults and teens through literacy since 2002.
“We have typically featured two titles per year, one for adults, and one for teens, with the teen component involving participation from the local schools,” says program coordinator Joan Luebering. This year, however, the program “chose a single title, The Hunger Games, for both adults and teens to read.”
By integrating the adult and teen reading programs, On the Same Page has created a much more unified reading program. “The teens loved the book,” says Luebering, “and the adults were really interested to realize how thoughtfully the teens read a book full of such controversial topics.”
Intergenerational discussion groups were the center of the interactions between the adults and teens in the program. According to Luebering, “This year was really special because it gave teens a chance to interact with people of all ages . . . they got to participate as equals in intergenerational book discussion.” Both teens and adults appreciated the new and different perspectives that were shared during these discussions.
On the Same Page has done an excellent job connecting youth and adults in the community and by doing so, created intergenerational relationships that will leave a positive impact in the lives of young people.
