In the last couple of days, I’ve been talking about reasons to be in a mother-daughter book club. Every week I hear from someone who is starting a club or has been in a club for a while. Every one talks about what they want to get from the the club they’re starting or what they find so special about being in a book club with a daughter. While each of those reasons is personal in its own way, each also falls under a broad category as well. Here’s a recap of the first two of those main reasons.
Being in a mother-daughter book club allows you to:
- Stay closer to your daughter as she grows
- Connect to the broader community around you
Today we’ll talk about the third main reason:
- Mother-daughter book clubs promote literacy in general.
A couple of years ago Scholastic released the results of a reading study that show children who read for fun are more likely to think of themselves as smart and good students who can succeed in school. Maybe not so surprising. But what is surprising, is that the number of kids who say they read for fun is really high only until about the age of eight. Beginning at nine, those numbers start to drop off, and they decline even more in middle school and high school.
Mother-daughter book clubscan counteract that trend, because they are a great way to keep your daughter reading for fun. Especially when you consider that nine (the age reading for fun begins to drop) is the “ideal age” if there is one to start a mother-daughter book club.
And it’s not just the reading that can benefit your daughter in school. It’s the talking too. When she discusses the books she has read with your group, she’s learning how to express her opinion and back it up. She gets to hone her speaking skills in a group, something that can really help her out when making presentations for research projects. Mother-daughter book clubs give her a safe environment where the pressure to perform may not feel like it has graded consequences.
Over the years I’ve watched as both of my daughters have become more confident at speaking up about issues to discuss in books we’ve read. I know of at least one mother-daughter book club that started because the moms wanted to encourage their daughters to speak up in class more. They had gotten feedback from teachers that their daughters’ school performance was being hurt by lack of participation in class discussion. These moms didn’t start until middle school, yet they felt their club really helped their daughters learn to speak out confidently. Now that’s a pretty large endorsement.
