Untalan Middle School community completes We Read literacy program

By Jannice Carrasco, for KUAM News

Encouraging a love for literacy at a young age, a middle school is bringing students together through a unique reading initiative.

“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” At Untalan Middle School in Barrigada, students are discovering how one book can bring an entire campus together through the We Read program. 

"For every student, every teacher, the administrators, the counselors, the school aides. I wanted everyone on campus to read the same book so that we have this shared experience with each other and we will be able to engage and dialogue and interact with each other on all of these different levels," explained teacher Madrid Borja.

"I thought that reading this book together, and making reading a positive experience for the students would result in better confidence as readers and that intern would result in higher academic achievement."

Even though it was a difficult path for students, at the end the results were rewarding. "Tier 3 students you know moving and improving their test scores is really difficult, its really hard, but we were able to get a lot of those tier three, those are the super struggling, you know performers, we got a lot of them to increase their test scores," she said.

Borja explains with detail the different parts of the We Read program, saying, "There’s three parts to this program: we read, we connect ,and we share. When we read, that’s where we read together. We connect, we do games, activities , we have discussions. None of it is graded, it's all like you know  just stress free and just connecting with these characters and these themes and each other in a positive stress free way. The third way is we share, which is today is the we share fair where all of the classes have come together to show their arts and crafts and their paintings and their videos and their skits and their music and you know the games that they put together because we are all sharing how we connected with the story."

Students shared what they felt about the We Read program, with one saying, "The way I felt about this We Read Program before I didn’t like reading that much, I couldn’t read that long, and it wasn’t that fun for me, but after it got more interesting because the book had three story lines that only connected after you get more into the book."

Another commented, "Yes, I would recommend this program to every else because it's a program where not only can you improve your reading skills, but you can also relate to it and you can talk about it with other people, for example if you’re shy but you guys are all on the same book you can take some stuff and you’re like 'Oh did you get to this part?' or 'How did you feel about this character?' It's really fun and I think it's really nice for making friends and meeting new people."

8th grade science teacher Benny Chargualaf shares his perspective on the book holes and how it resonates with students. "I am going to be totally transparent, I really do not like to read unless I absolutely have to. I’m a Science teacher so we are more hands on, but this book really connects to a whole gamut in a crowd, it really speaks to different characters in school, in life, in general and I think that’s what resonated with my students, they can see themselves in different characters in the book," he said.

And as the chapters continue, so does a love for reading, one page at a time.