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Bridge the Gap Launches New Reading
& Composition Program for Middle School Students
on Saturday Mornings
The Breakfast Club at Bridge the Gap
 Encouraging a Lifetime of Learning
One of Bridge the Gap’s founding principles is to encourage the love of reading. We have long understood that reading is not simply decoding the symbols known as letters on a page. The Breakfast Club targets middle school students who benefit from small group instruction in reading and composition. Early on Saturday mornings, five or six students join us at Bridge the Gap for breakfast and language arts lessons.
We chose this specific age group because they increasingly face the challenge of complicated text, both in terms of vocabulary as well as content. When teaching children how to read well, it is not enough to use the “sound-it-out” strategy for unfamiliar words to propel these students into the next phase of learning and appreciating literature.
 Fiction and non-fiction employ different strategic approaches.
With fiction, you begin a story and the progression is very linear. With non-fiction, you can pick up information through captions, headings and sometimes graphics or photos. The layout and design are often meant to grab your interest in a non-linear fashion. If the heading doesn’t pull you in, perhaps the graphics will, or visa versa. This “out of order” approach can be a freeing notion for children struggling to grasp the meaning of unfamiliar words and concepts. The students will also have the chance to use a variety of writing strategies as they compose a detailed, descriptive, observational piece.
This is the inaugural season for The Breakfast Club. It is a unique opportunity for students to develop stronger study skills while fostering peer support. Our hope is that the students will leave the Breakfast Club with dramatically increased confidence in their ability to read and write. At Bridge the Gap, we are committed to encouraging our students to be life long learners.
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