A Message from the Founder: Creating a “Reading Habit”, Strong Comprehension and More with The Book Club Game and Its Editions
The Book Club Game proved efficient and most effective in building comprehension and love for reading, as well as being a catalyst uniting my students of all ability levels and backgrounds, including the gifted, remedial, reluctant, ESL, ADD and motivated and non-motivated learners during the first eight years of my teaching career. It was easily worked into any reading program that I was compelled to use, always enriching the classroom reading experience and igniting parental involvement. To extract the knowledge level facts of any story in a fun way, students created their own what, where, when, who, how and why questions with answers for their classmates; this a strong transferable active reading strategy for both narrative (stories) and expository (informational reading) and it prevents the dissecting of a great story to death by tweaking the way the facts are recalled. It actually turns out to be more thorough as well.
The students delighted in retelling the story with their own drawings and narrative on the wipe-off game board and sequencing the main events of the story. Then as they moved around the game board, comprehension and critical thinking soared as they answered the higher level questions. These questions allowed them to connect the story to their world and other stories and reflect on the themes, characters, plots and settings. The more they talked, the more the story came alive. The students used the same questions to journal their private reading.
The questions, being of generic form, soon were internalized by the students and naturally transferred this higher comprehension to all of their reading, which was strongly reflected in their comprehension performance scores. Because of the dynamic nature of the game, that is, with every new story, it changes, the students never tired of it. In fact, this game that was building comprehension and critical thinking skills, demanding deep thinking and lots of brain energy was always looked at as a reward! Soon I made small game boards, for them to take home and teach their parents and siblings. This was a huge success.
More families were turning off the TV and opting to read and play. Students and parents were creating a “Reading Habit” Many times students would bring a story from class to share with the family. At Back to School Nights, I remember being swamped with parents, especially those of ESL students, many coming for the first time, thanking me for the game that was letting them know what questions to ask and involving them in reading. Some ESL parents shared that they were learning English from their child through reading and playing the game!
After eight years of teaching I began a family of my own. During this time two significant things happened to greatly influence the development of The Book Club Game. One 
was I became an avid reader of children’s literature through reading with my own children. Even when they began to read I continued to read the books they were reading and always had a book that I was reading to them that I tried to keep above their reading levels. I loved every second of this reading and became quite an enthusiast about literature that I had never had the time to read as a student or teacher.
I am so grateful for this time as both my boys became avid readers and I became a much more knowledgeable reading specialist able to direct my reluctant readers and parents to enticing page turners. During my early parenting I tutored so that I could be home with my children. The students who came to me were often turned off to traditional teaching methods ( ie pencil pushing, workbooks, writing answers to the what, where, when, who type questions and then stopping there.). Many were not connecting what they were reading to their own lives. Further, many of them and their parents didn’t know what books to read. Parents and their children, in most cases, did not read together, let alone read on their own. It was up to me to help them create a “reading habit”. Again, The Book Club Game worked easily to get parents and kids reading together, building comprehension skills in a fun way.
The great need for families to find motivating page turners to start with led me to formulate an eclectic starter booklist of favorites. Teaching in the same school district as my kids attended I used their classrooms and mine along with others in the school district to survey personal favorite reads of kids, parents and teachers. Titles were chosen that appeared most frequently as favorites that also reflected library researched favorites to compose beginning booklists included in the games and now on the site. These books share a common thread of having appeal to both adults and kids, actually to all ages. Many have been made into movies now, which is a good thing for two reasons. One, comparing the book and movie is a great path to building comprehension. Two, the popularity of a movie can always hook a reluctant reader into a book. This brings to mind The Diary of a Wimpy Kid and a reluctant reader I tutored that loved the author, the movie and now is an avid reader with high comprehension scores who loves reading from many genres and reading for information.
During those early days of early motherhood and tutoring the unexpected byproduct of the game was that child and parent were sharing parts of their lives with each other and bonding like never before. Fighting siblings were acquiring a new respect, understanding and compassion for each other. I had many a teary- eyed parent tell me how much he has learned about his child through the game! Others told me how their shy children were becoming confident speakers by playing the game. Still others couldn’t believe how reading was replacing TV, video and computer games in their homes.
Book Clubs and The Book Club Game for Comprehension, Critical Thinking and More
The Book Club Game became a tool to engage my own children, their friends our families as we 
formed “book club” groups. The groups spread out to our public library and local bookstores where many gathered biweekly after reading the same books. Word spread of the fun and groups sometimes neared 50 excited readers, parents, grandparents and children. The gatherings were an absorbed hour of comprehension building, communication and discovery of the true joy and depth of reading.
With requests from my students, their parents, friends, community members joining our book clubs, I decided to formally copyright and publish The Book Club Game, now with booklists and hint cards to the booklists. Those that bought the game created family and community “book clubs” of their own. Teachers created classroom “book clubs” using the game and reported using it to enhance and deepen comprehension with their existing reading programs and books. Many teachers have loved the peer recommendation of titles that occurs when kids comment on the booklists and add their own favorites to it. Parents, kids, grandparents, siblings, teachers and friends share their favorite books this way and book club members step out of their favorite genres to experience the new ones suggested.
The Game as A Peace Catalyst
Upon my return to the classroom, The Book Club Game was revised once again to use metacognition (awareness of one’s own learning), now with labeling the levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy and Story Elements that the questions reflect. When supervising high school teachers and teaching at the college level the game was used for diverse ability leveled students and to bring all ages together in community reading “book clubs” consisting of senior citizens, high school and college students and elementary students and their parents. Critical thinking and comprehension flourished within the diverse perspectives across age groups, cultures and genders. It became clear that the game is also a peace catalyst, ensuring a total participatory discussion where diverse perspectives are celebrated in a respectful encouraging climate.
Much is learned about the players during the short time it is played as they talk comfortably about themselves and their worlds through the game and the story played. The game’s activity to glean inspiration from each story and turn it into positive actions for individuals and community promotes compassion, understanding and peace. My own adult book club is now doing a community service to the theme of each book we read. One goal of Reading Solutions is to ignite book clubs throughout the world to do the same. Making sure that some of your book club reads consistently include stories that reflect cultural awareness and the plights of people also can only grow compassion, understanding and peace.
Preparing for College: Motivation to Read More And Application of Reading
In less than a blink I found myself in a familiar lecture hall at UCLA, now as a parent of my incoming freshman. I was particularly moved by the professor’s words. He told us that success at this level would be determined by the students’ ability to now take what is learned and identify its application to new situations as opposed to regurgitating facts learned. Many of the incoming freshmen might find this an adjustment from high school learning. He assured us that many of our students would face the new challenge of having to read much more than they ever did in high school.
As I sat and listened I thought of The Book Club Game and how it directly addresses both of these areas beginning at a very early age. The questions involved constantly ask students to apply what is read to new situations, their lives and the lives of others they know or other literary characters and their worlds. These thought processes can begin with the game even before the student is reading by playing the game after reading to him or her. Secondly, the game develops a genuine love for reading where the student always has “a book in progress”.
The booklists’ provide an excellent starting point and resource for this. The importance of reading beyond what is expected in school for students of all grades cannot be emphasized enough. Recreational reading should and can be a joy throughout one’s life. It is simple and fun to create a “reading habit” that will not only ensure college readiness but will bring a lifelong joy of learning.
It gives me great pleasure to make The Book Club Game, its new editions, including What’s the Big Idea? for teens/adults, The Preschool-Kindergarten Edition, The Reading Companion Journal Guides, and Just Cards available to you for these very reasons. They will develop and reinforce the thinking skills not only important for the future, but so important for connecting to the relevance, true purpose and magic of reading in the present. The games’ creation of a “reading habit” for students, teachers, families and all those willing to share a story will prove as invaluable now as it will in college and beyond.
I am a passionate reading specialist who loves to share the skills, best strategies, joy, wonder, and enlightenment of reading with others. I am always excited about starting classroom, neighborhood, and community book clubs. Please contact me if I can be of assistance whether it will be for family, friends, professional groups, or the classroom and I am available for consulting and private tutoring as well.
Sincerely,
Teri Azar
