SFX Book Club

The Resource Centre in collaboration with Humanities teachers are trialling a new literacy initiative called Book Club. Research overwhelmingly supports the “reading of self-selected materials for the purposes of enjoyment, rather than assessment” (Merga, 2022). Merga shares a shopping list of benefits in her research including enhancing literacy skills, academic performance across all subjects, vocabulary development, reading comprehension, greater social and relationship development, empathy, stress reduction and general enhanced wellbeing.

Students in Year 8 were given the choice of some of the hottest fiction books available to read with their friends. The buzz during the ‘book sell’ was electric!

‘It was so fun to read and share different books with my friends.  I loved listening to their preferences and could see they were similar to mine’

— Imogen

‘Bookclub is a great way to meet and get to know other students as well as discover what books interest them’

— Grace

Staff decided that students shouldn’t get to have all the fun so will be running their own Book Club starting with the novel Harvest by Tess Gerritsen.

Students will be given the term to read their books and engage in discussion about them. We look forward to sharing this reading journey with the community.

‘It was great and fun to participate in the first part of Bookclub. We would recommend everyone to give it a go!’

— Savannah and Jasmine

‘Mohammed Ali all the way!  I can’t wait to read his biography’

— Connor

Merga, M. (2022). How to encourage teens to read. https://theeducationhub.org.nz/how-to-encourage-teens-to-read/