The Northtowns Boys & Girls Clubs Read to Succeed initiative gives 60-100 elementary-aged students the opportunity to engage with high quality literature in a structured, out-of-school setting every year. Program participants in 2nd/3rd grade and 4th/5th grade form teams of 6-10 members and meet weekly with their coaches to read a book, discuss the text and write about their experiences.
Read to Succeed is year-long program that generally kicks off in late October at all 6 Northtowns Boys & Girls Club Units in Tonawanda, North Tonawanda and the City of Buffalo. The program culminates in late spring with an agency wide event, usually consisting of a quiz show-style completion and reading fair where student work samples and projects are displayed and judged. Since 1999, the program has introduced club members and their families to more than 20 fiction and non-fiction titles ranging in theme from current events, to diversity issues, history, bullying, and school-day curricular connections. The program is popular with staff, kids and their families and gives participants a chance to build literacy skills in a low-risk, supportive setting in order to help foster a love of reading.
This year's program continues the theme of great literature through a lens of tolerance and diversity. Participants in grades 2 and 3 will read a collection of short tales culled from the Perpectives for a Diverse America anthology. Each club will have its 4th and 5th graders read a different novel by the prolific and much loved author Roald Dahl. Both teams will create projects to refelct their experience that they will show at the annual Read to Succeed competition in the spring.