What is Book Buddies? 

Book Buddies is a program designed to offer one-on-one assistance and early intervention for targeted first grade students who score below the benchmark on the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening Test (PALS).

Who provides the assistance?

                Radford City’s program is designed to utilize the services of Radford University student teachers to provide individualized instruction to students selected for the program.  The student teachers receive training on the use of appropriate early literacy development activities for providing instruction to emergent readers.  The Book Buddies supervisor oversees the lesson planning and the tutoring sessions.

What do they do?

                The tutors meet with their buddy for 45 minutes prior to the start of the school day two times a week.  They work on tasks such as reading, journal writing, reading, word banks, reading, picture and word sorting, and reading (oh, and did I say reading?)!

Why?

• Reading is the priority in first grade.
   

• If a student is reading below grade level, it is imperative to intervene as soon as possible.

Success of the Book Buddies Program:

• Administrators, teachers and parents of Book Buddies children are strong in their praise of the program.
   

• Data shows that students are achieving gains in reading development by the end of first grade.
   

• The RCPS Book Buddies program is based on the award-winning Book Buddies program in the Charlottesville City Schools, created by Dr. Marcia Invernizzi and Dr. Connie Juel.

http://www.ccs.k12.va.us/programs/book_buddies.html

http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/files/CVs/mai_cv.pdf