Last week was our first class together and it went great. For the cool-down at the very end of class, we sat in a circle, and I asked the group of inner city 5-8 year old girls to each tell me one of their favorite books or stories. We went around the circle, the answers were...concerning.
The first response was Justin Bieber. (pause). Do you have a book about Justin Bieber? Yes. (ok well, at least she's talking about a book). Most of the girls when asked this question gave answers that seemed odd, I think there were more movie references than anything. One girl did have a book of all the princesses. Another girl said that the book we read that day for our class (Dance with Me by Charles R. Smith Jr. - also in book recommendations) was her favorite. I told her and the other girls that any of the books we read in class, they can find at the library (which you can almost see from our building). There was a little bit of an excited buzz that went around the circle.
I wonder what kind of exposure these girls are getting to good books? Who models good reading habits for them? Have they ever even been to the library?
Based on the answers of the previous week, I decided to incorporate "book time" into this week's class. I brought a stack of age appropriate books that I have in my collection and put them out. I was going to save this as an end of class activity, but they were so excited to see the books, they just picked them up and started looking at them, reading them, and asking me and the staff person to read. So instead, I set the timer for five minutes, and told them when the timer goes off, we will put the books away and start our warm-up.
I love that a major part of my job is to get kids excited about reading.
It was working with at-risk girls like these and recognizing the need for more exposure and opportunities with literacy that got me to start incorporating more and more literacy into my dance classes. Now it has become a class of its own and the format seems to work really well. I like, and I believe the kids also like, having fun kinetic experiences with language and literacy. There is also music, and instruments that come out sometimes, we write words on the board, and look at the pictures in the book, sometimes the girls read the story along with me. Story Story Dance! has all the learning styles covered.
Book time is now an official part of this class for my girls group. I am so glad I decided to bring all the other books. It was a last minute on a whim thought. The books were already in the backseat of my car not doing anything, so I grabbed a bunch and brought them in with me.
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