MacArthur students encourage little learners

This month, about 30 MacArthur National Honor Society (NHS) students are taking time out of their busy schedules to read books to elementary school students at Thousand Oaks and Regency Place elementary schools.

“We wanted to come up with service opportunities that could be done from home,” explained Junior Mia Enriquez. “So, I came up with the idea to host a virtual book club, that way both elementary school students and high school students can share in a fun and interactive experience in a safe environment.”

Now, every Wednesday at 4 p.m., students from MacArthur, Regency Place and Thousand Oaks along with their sponsors and librarians long into a Zoom meeting and dive into a book together. The NHS student will read a book in the Sora application available to all North East ISD students in their Launchpad App. Then the students get a chance to ask questions and learn about the book and MacArthur. Right now it’s only open to Kindergarten through second-graders, but the plan is to open up all the way to fifth-grade.

“We also want to have Spanish books read as well for Regency students, since it’s a Dual Language campus,” said Enriquez.

Mia sees this as a win-win for all the students involved and is looking forward to all the great experience these students will have.

“The NHS members will be learning how to interact with younger students, keep them engaged and work on patience,” she said. “The elementary students will see the older kids and may be more inspired to read or pick up reading techniques to help them along their educational path.”

While Mia is being credited with the virtual book club idea, she made it clear, this has really been a team effort. She praised all of the NHS officers, sponsors and librarians who worked behind the scenes on the technology and planning side to get this working the best way possible.