BBC : Birtles Library Wide Reading Program

Our Wide Reading Program : Reading for Learning and Reading for Leisure

Brisbane Boys’ College has a strong Wide Reading Program which caters for all our students, but most particularly, for our Middle School boys. The Middle School years are highly important years for developing strong reading habits in boys and then building on them, so that by the time your son has reached Year 10, he is reading widely and confidently across both Fiction and Non Fiction, and across the different genres of Fiction. Our Wide Reading Program aims to encourage both reading for learning and reading for leisure.

The Wide Reading Program is the brainchild of on-going liaison between the Birtles Library and the English Department and is embedded in the 7-9 English Curriculum. Our College’s approach is quite unique in this regard. Your son will participate in the Wide Reading Program through weekly “library lessons” from Year 7 until he reaches Year 9. Every student in Year 7 receives a Reading Profile, a copy of which is kept by the Teacher Librarian so that each boy’s reading interest areas can accompany him through Middle School. Different activities are undertaken each term to broaden and encourage their reading habits.

So why should boys read at all? Why are books still important in a growing world of digital information? Do boys not also do substantial reading in a digital format?

Reading both print and digital sources enables boys to make connections between the different subjects that they will study during their school years.

Reading books builds familiarity with the printed word that they will encounter in their textbooks. It builds vocabulary, increases both print and digital searching skills and develops a depth in understanding that the digital world has yet to achieve.

Reading books builds confidence, the ability to think beyond and around the world the boys live in, to see into others’ lives, to understand other cultures and to understand others’ points of view.

Digital reading for information is important too, but there is something almost sacred in physically holding a book in one’s hands, for nothing yet devised can supplant the bond between the physical book and the engaged reader.

Reading for learning and reading for leisure, reading digitally and reading physically. It is all important.