Bookzoomy is an online peer-to-peer reading initiative that organizes after-school reading clubs within schools. With an extensive training curriculum and teacher-approved material, we train older students in K-12 schools and give them the skills necessary to lead a group of younger peers.
“As the pandemic hit, I realized that Kevin, a 4th grader, who I had tutored in math was not going to be hearing English outside of his limited zoom classes. His parents are from Mexico and non-English speakers. Thus, I decided to create some live reading zoom sessions for Kevin and his sister. I chose a book that was simple and fun, adding comprehension questions to make sure they were actively participating and understanding both the vocabulary and the plot. I did not see it as a leadership role at the time, but simply as a project I enjoyed doing and that was also personally fulfilling. The word got out and soon enough, I was reading to 25 kids every day from 6:30 to 7:10 pm. I reached out to my old friend Yanis and we decided to collaborate to launch BookZoomy, a Zoom-enabled reading platform to instill in children our passion for reading and learning. We built a website, created a logo and started recruiting readers. We worked for several months to develop a business plan to make BookZoomy a sustainable initiative, and decided that we would try creating reading clubs within K-12 schools. We now have 3 chapters in 2 countries and look forward to many more."
Charlie O'Brien
Yanis Koutoupes Guessous
BOOKZOOMY's dual mission is to foster a deep passion for learning in our students and to promote opportunity, equality and empathy for our team.
Our curriculum is designed to offer the best learning experience to our students. With the help of elementary school english teachers, we handpick our content to make it the most interesting possible. We base our teaching style off of Harvard Graduate School of Education's See, Think, Wonder strategy, and make sure our books are educational, entertaining, and appropriate for your child.
A student reader that leads BOOKZOOMY classes. All bookzoomers have gone through our training program, and are expected to be able to read in a comprehensible manner, have enough interpersonal skills to maintain engaging conversations with younger students, and have the patience and diligence necessary to offer an amazing learning experience.
Our amazing, curious, and unique listeners. Through this club, our bookzoomies, or zoomies for short, will develop and enhance comprehension skills through dictated reading, participate in engaging reading-related activities, and eventually work on producing a story of their own.