MELSA Next Chapter Book Club Affiliate Training,
February 24, 2016
Saint Paul Public Library Staff Erin
Zolotukhin-Ridgway, Gao Yang, Deb Kerkvliet, Joe Houlihan (Vista), and Mary
Knox have received training for SPPL to become a NCBC affiliate.
What is Next Chapter Book Club? Next
Chapter Book Club (NCBC) offers weekly opportunities for adolescents and adults
with developmental disabilities - regardless of reading ability - to be members
of a book club, to read and learn together in a community setting. Clubs are
typically made up of 5-10 members and 1-3 trained facilitators reading the same book each time they meet until the
book is completed.
Why have a book club for people with
developmental disabilities?
●
NCBC helps people
with disabilities read, make friends, and enjoy the community.
●
People with
developmental disabilities can experience barriers to community inclusion and
may have more limited opportunities for social interaction and only segregated
social activities.
●
There can be
barriers to lifelong learning due to social attitudes that people with
developmental disabilities are not interested in or capable of learning after
school nor interested in reading or books.
●
An NCBC
facilitator commented that her time working with the book club reminded her of
the incredible diversity and talent within people just waiting for an
opportunity to be heard. All people need to have the opportunity to express
their thoughts and feelings. NCBC is an opportunity to meet people where they
are, to assume competence, and to celebrate what they can do.
History: NCBC was started by the Nisonger
Center at Ohio State University in 2002 to
integrate learning and social activity for people with developmental
disabilities into community settings. NCBC has grown from 2 book clubs in
Columbus, OH to nearly 300 clubs across North America, Europe and Israel.
Literacy skills: NCBC isn’t a class
although NCBC participants may gain skills like page turning, knowing parts of
books, word and letter recognition, enjoying and discussing books. NCBC focuses
on reading to learn rather than learning to read.
Community inclusion: NCBC allows the
opportunity for participants to be out in the community where people go. Clubs
have often been held in community locations like book stores, cafes. In
libraries, NCBC encourages clubs to be held in open spaces or if held in
enclosed meeting rooms, encourages that part of the club meeting take place out
in the open like exploring the library to find books or learn how to use
resources.
Goal: The goal of the program is for
members to interact more frequently and in new ways with books and a variety of
written/oral communication, each other and the community around them.
Facilitators work to help each member stay engaged as everyone is different.
Book club meetings:
●
Reading is done
during the club meetings so that members and facilitators can support each
other as much as each wants to be supported.
●
Book club
meetings are also times for socializing, chatting, asking questions about the
book, but also about each other, learning and sharing.
●
There’s no
certain time by which a book has to be finished.
●
Clubs generally
meet at a minimum every other week. Meeting weekly gives consistency to the
club and helps keep members engaged in the book.
●
Clubs usually
meet for an hour at the same time and location.
●
Clubs are
facilitated by 1-3 facilitators, may be trained staff or volunteers.
●
NCBCs meet in
public spaces where the general community gathers: bookstores, libraries,
cafes, and coffee shops, etc. and try to meet in open spaces to encourage
community visibility, awareness, and engagement.
Members:
●
Next Chapter Book
Clubs welcome members with any reading level.
●
Every effort is
made to accommodate anyone who would like to join. Ways to help could be
increasing text size on an e-reader, providing a book cradle to hold a book (if
grasp or holding the book is difficult), audio books, large print, copying
pages of the book to increase text size, letting someone enter text into a
speech reader, providing an interpreter, etc.
●
Any disruptive,
problematic behavior is addressed on a case by case basis. Most often what may
happen is that people may talk over each other or interrupt. NCBC recommends
giving people a chance to do their best with gentle and respectful re-direction
and reminders (not too wordy): “Hey, let’s talk about this at the end”, or
“Hold on to that thought for a minute while_____finishes her thought”. Every
once in a while there may be a member who just isn’t a good fit. NCBC staff is
available for on-going support and consultation and Jillian is the Director of Training
and Technical Assistance.
●
Prospective
members can visit a club to see what it looks like and whether they would like
it.
●
Age ranges: It is
recommended to have a separate group for younger teens 12-13/14-17 and then a
group for older teens/young adults/adults 18+. If a younger teen wants to join,
you may want to talk with them and/or their guardian/parent to see if putting
them in a group of older teens/adults will be a good fit.
NCBC Facilitators:
●
The facilitator’s
role is to ensure a safe, supportive, and fun experience and to monitor the
club to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to engage and access books,
inclusion, etc.
●
Promote self-determination
through highlighting areas/chances for members to make choices: when the group
wants to take a break for socializing, what books the group wants to read,
where they want to sit, what rules the group wants to have, what the group
wants to do during holiday breaks, etc. The facilitator helps ensure that
members are given a chance to be decision makers.
●
Facilitators
should make sure that members are contacted if the club can’t met for any
reason, like in the case of unsafe road conditions, weather, etc.
●
Facilitators can
be either paid staff or volunteers or both if more than one facilitator.
●
Volunteer
recruiting: facilitators help recruit volunteers through volunteer recruiters,
student service organizations, colleges, high schools, newspaper and magazine
articles about the club, word of mouth, etc.
●
Facilitators
should make sure that volunteers are screened and trained.
●
Volunteer
training: Volunteers and new facilitators should receive an hour to 1 ½ hours
of training during which facilitators find out their interests, check to make
sure they are committed and can volunteer for at least the length of time it
takes to finish one book. NCBC recommends that if volunteers are minors they
should be paired with an older volunteer or paid staff facilitator. If
volunteers are students you may want to consider running the club on a school
calendar.
Effective Practices:
●
Support emergent
readers using Echo reading. Echo reading is pointing to what you are reading and saying it
and then giving the member a chance to repeat it, if they want assistance
reading. By doing this you give them a chance to be part of the reading
experience and it can be a real feeling of accomplishment when they are able to
follow along and repeat. “When helping a
member who does not read independently, position yourself next to that member.
Point to the words you are reading and encourage the member to follow along.
After a brief pause, say the word (s) and wait for him or her to “echo” the
words back. Encourage the member to try some smaller words on his/her own.“
After working with the group for a while you can get a sense of who needs what
support.
Some more tips
for echo reading: Project your voice and read with inflection. Avoid whispering
words in the member’s ears. Don’t spend too much time sounding out words or
correcting. It is advisable to limit the amount of echoed text to a paragraph
or two.
●
Have everyone
follow along in their books. They might use their fingers or a bookmark to
track.
●
Participation may
happen in different ways: facilitators should watch faces, body language to see
responses and may offer a word or phrase for what the member may be
communicating: “You’re shaking your head. Do you think those kids were mean?”
Facilitators can ask yes/no questions, ask about pictures in the book.
●
If a facilitator
has difficulty connecting with a member, you may ask the member or his/her
guardian, if needed, how to best communicate-with a notebook, other ways??
●
Periodically
summarize or ask questions about events in recent pages to assist with
comprehension. You may want to stop more frequently to do this. Not everyone
may comprehend same things in the same way and at the same level. May ask “Do you think Ramona is happy or
frustrated?”
●
When text
contains a more advanced word, stop to ask what it means or give a definition
or synonym.
●
Engage the senses
by asking members to imagine a particular scene in the story. For example
if the characters are in the kitchen you
might ask, “What do you smell in a kitchen? What noises might you hear?” Talk
about sensory experience, the time period, etc. If you are reading about riding
in a covered wagon you could talk about this and compare it to transportation
today.
●
If you have an
iPad or other mobile device or laptop, you may want to use it to bring up
visuals to answer questions like what does a smirk look like.
●
Can discuss
outside/related topics for as long as seems to be of interest to group. Let the
group direct itself some of the time. Any point in story can be a spark for
discussion about participants’ lives or how story and lives relate/compare. See
if timing is right for a conversation or may want to save for the end. May also
want to wait for natural break like when changing readers.
●
Model
conversation skills. Help facilitate turn taking and extending the conversation
by asking follow up questions or giving follow up comments.
●
Say one thing and
then wait for the member to respond. Some people may need more time for
processing. May give prompts for turn taking, “Would you like to know what
_______did this weekend?”
●
Allow time for
silence and avoid responding to every question or silence. Need to make sure
give time for members to process and respond. Ask members to tell a person to
his/her left about a favorite character, vacation spot, etc.
●
Will start to get
reading rhythm and people will feel when new reader is needed.
●
Vary the style of
your questions. Not all members may be able to respond to open-ended questions
so try some either/or or yes/no questions. Can see whether using a choice board
would help or helping the member pre-program words into an assistive speech
device.
●
What if a a group
member tries to dominate conversations? Politely and respectfully re-direct the
conversation. May look at giving a visual cue to signify that it’s time for the
next person to talk. May look at giving this person an assignment (one club
that met to discuss movies had a member who was more verbal than others and so
he was given the assignment of researching a topic related to the movie and
giving everyone a brief presentation on that topic before the movie viewing
started. ) Groups may want to write down their rules for everyone to follow.
May want to consider having a visual that indicates when it is time to talk and
when it is not.
●
Help members
learn each other's names.
●
Initiate conversations
by pointing out mutual interests and encourage members to ask each other
questions. One activity could be to put a list of questions that members can
ask each other in the middle of the table and have members draw a question to
ask someone else.
●
Encourage members
to help one another with such things as finding the correct page in the book.
●
Be animated in
our conversations; avoid making them feel like a quiz. Model reading fluency by
taking a turn reading and don’t be afraid to use voices for characters, be
silly.
●
Use bookmarks to
scan down the page, even if members aren’t able to stay exactly in the same
place at first it gives another way to follow along with their peers.
●
Respond to
participation with positive reinforcement, “Great job.” “Thanks for reading”.
Notice when members try something new or try or can do something that they
hadn’t tried or done before or expand on something that they started.
●
Highlight
opportunities for members to make choices.
●
Allow members to
interact with staff. Only offer support if needed. Encourage members to talk
about the club to other customers if a customer is curious about the club.
●
For more ideas on
activities for NCBC, see one of the SPPL staff who attended the training as we
received a list of suggested activities or ask Erin, program coordinator, to get you copies of materials. We received two copies of the NCBC book:Next Chapter Book Club: A Model Community
Literacy Program for People with Intellectual Disabilities
and I am keeping one copy at my desk and having the other one added to the
training library if you would like to borrow this book. I also have copies of
intake, tracking forms, etc.
Basic Group Management:
●
Respect members’
privacy and don’t share information without permission.
●
Stay flexible.
●
Redirect if
necessary (polite, respectful, direct). It may help to give someone who has a
lot to say a task related to what you are reading like doing research on a
topic related to the book that can be shared at the beginning or end of a
meeting or helping to hand out books, something related that still keeps them
with the group.
●
When starting a
book, you may want to read the summary on the back of the book or inside the cover
and discuss what you think will happen. You can let people know that they can
help each other with words, finding pages, etc.
if others would like to be helped.
●
Monitor member
attendance. Call and talk with members if not attending to find out how are
feeling about the group. Check to make sure they are okay.
●
Welcome visitors
and involve them in the club. Give them a chance to try it out.
●
Assist members in
adjusting to roster changes. Talk about if a member needs to leave the group
(he/she is moving, trying a different activity, etc.) so everyone can feel
comfortable with change as many may feel deep friendships with the other
members.
Communication with NCBC Main Office:
●
NCBC requests
affiliates notify them of changes in the affiliate’s program coordinator,
media requests related to NCBC, changes in the status of the NCBC program at
the affiliate’s site or questions about the Standards of Practice. (This links to a Google Doc. If you can’t open
this, please contact Erin for a copy of the Standards of
Practice.) NCBC does request some forms be filled out on a monthly basis to
track how their clubs are doing.
Program Sustainability:
● Success of
programs depends on intentionality of staff and volunteers involved. Be sure you have someone to champion your
club.
● If you are
partnering with an outside organization, be sure to meet or check in with your
partners regularly to make sure everyone’s on the same page and follows through
on commitments.
● Consider whether
you want any breaks for your club during the year like in the summer or winter
holidays, etc. This can be a chance for the group to discuss and make a choice
about when to meet.
NCBC Outcomes-Results from 97 member
surveys showed:
●
84% stated their
reading improved as a result of taking part in the club.
●
65% said they
found new friends in the club.
●
81% said they
like or really like being in the club.
NCBC on Social Media:
@NCBCColumbusOH
Link to my research and proposal on how to proceed
(This is a Google Doc. If you can’t access it, let me know and I can send it to
you as a Word attachment.)
I am waiting to hear back from the St.
Paul JCC Inclusion and Accessibility and Highland Friendship Club about whether
they are interested in partnering and able to do so. If they are, we will work
on starting a club at Highland Park Library. If they aren’t, then I will work
on starting a club at George Latimer Central. I hope to be able to start a club
in the summer or fall of 2015.
If you are interested in looking at the
NCBC book, the starter set of short stories NCBC provided, getting trained on
how to be a NCBC facilitator, getting more information on NCBC, please contact me (Erin) at: 651-266-7000, #5
(ask for Erin) or erin.zolotukhin-ridgway@ci.stpaul.mn.us
