Reading circles for primary school children with a refugee or migrant background
Educational equality as a prerequisite for equal opportunities is an important part of our work. In this context, we have set up reading circles in various district library halls.
Children with a refugee or migrant background often still have difficulties with reading. This initially has a negative impact on their school performance and later also on their career prospects. Often, the necessary support at home cannot be guaranteed due to a lack of German language skills. We want to meet this challenge with our reading circles. As part of our mentoring project beeMentor, volunteer mentors read for an hour every week with a group of six to eight primary school children aged six to nine in Hamburg’s district libraries (Barmbek, Billstedt, Steilshoop, soon Wandsbek).
With the reading circles, we want to positively influence the children’s reading self-concept by having the mentors read aloud, encourage the children to read aloud themselves and thus train their reading skills. Techniques such as choral and tandem reading are used and reading games are played or pictures drawn in between to visualize what has been read. In this way, reading is no longer exclusively and often negatively associated with school, but the children are allowed to have fun and practise according to their abilities and at their own pace in a small group. The aim is for them to develop a love of reading and to start reading regularly at home.
We are delighted that we have been able to recruit many volunteers for the reading circles and are very grateful for the support our project receives from the libraries , which provide us with premises and also support us in the implementation.
The reading circle is so valuable to us in many ways – by working together with the district libraries, we not only strengthen the visibility of our association, but also our reach among families, to whom we can then offer further support. For the volunteers, the reading circle offers an opportunity for structured and predictable volunteer work.