A book you’re allowed to demolish. Different? Yes! Does it help? Absolutely. Students in VMBO and PBO are launching the innovative reading promotion project “Demolish This Book” this month. By demolishing books, twenty schools are building reading pleasure.

In collaboration with the Frisian Libraries, Fers is launching the reading promotion project this month. Using fifteen assignments, students will gradually work towards positive reading experiences. This is important at a time when reading skills and reading motivation have been declining for years, especially among VMBO and PBO students.

Kickoff at PRO Drachten

The project kicked off on Tuesday, January 20th, at the PRO Drachten school. The first copy of “Het-Sloop-Dit-Boek-Boek” (The-Demolish-This-Book-Book) was presented to teacher and avid reading promoter Famke Weersma-Wink. She has been involved from the very first pilot. Weersma-Wink: “I see how reading can be the key. It opens up the world, it gives you the words to make yourself heard. This project is playful and accessible. Students browse, discover, try. And little by little, something changes.” After the presentation, the students got to work on the first assignment, tearing out what they considered the most ridiculous page of the book.

Space for Reading Anxiety

To encourage students with reading anxiety and aversion to read, it’s important that we take this aversion seriously. Demolish This Book starts with the phase before reading becomes fun. Reading is allowed to be ridiculous. And from the safety of that recognition, we gradually work towards positive reading experiences. “One of the best ways to get students reading is to subtly entice them. And that, in my opinion, is exactly what Demolish This Book, despite its not-so-subtle title, aims to do,” says Roel van Steensel, Professor of Reading Behavior at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Professor of Reading & Education at Erasmus University. There’s no aimless throwing or destroying. Students are allowed to smudge, scribble, cut, write, fold, and tear. While destruction is involved, something else is created. Students gain positive reading experiences, reducing resistance to reading and increasing their reading enjoyment and self-confidence.

Collaboration with educational institutions and experts

Teachers and reading consultants from the Frisian Libraries were involved in developing the project. Various experts and researchers in the field of reading promotion were also consulted, including those from Fers and the Reading Foundation. The project will be rolled out for the first time this school year to students in pre-vocational secondary education (VMBO) basic and intermediate levels, and within practical education. “Het-Sloop-Dit-Boek-Boek” (The-Demolish-This-Book-Book) is filled with rich texts carefully selected for target groups that connect with the theme of identity. The excerpts are diverse in content, text type, and the authors’ backgrounds. They come from (young adult) novels, graphic novels, poems, young adult books, and informational books. The selection is also multilingual. All this variety allows students to find recognition, humor, and challenge in texts that are as diverse as they are.

“Sloop dit Boek” was made possible in part by a contribution from the Stichting Lezen. It is part of the Fries Leesoffensief, a collaboration of community organizations to promote reading and reading enjoyment. The book was published by Elikser in Leeuwarden.

Photo: Yrsa Heijdra