How Barbershop Books is transforming Black boys’ reading experiences and leveraging the untapped potential of barbershops across America
“If you start with what children do well, what they’re interested in, familiar with, and identify with, you can use that as a launching pad to actually help them acquire the skills and knowledge that you want them to know or be able to do,” – Alvin Irby, Founder and Chief Reading Inspirer of Barbershop Books.
Literacy challenges in public schools
Many Americans are aware of the achievement gap between white and Black students in public schools, and this also extends to reading performance and outcomes. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)’s 2019 reading report card, only 18% of Black fourth graders are performing at or above NAEP Proficient, compared to 45% of white students. Male students are also eight percentage points behind female students, putting young Black boys at heightened risk.
Barbershop Books assesses the four primary threats to reading proficiency in Black boys on their website: (1) limited access to engaging reading material; (2) lack of Black men in Black boys’ early reading experiences; (3) few culturally competent educators; and (4) educational systems that are unresponsive to Black boys’ individual learning needs.
Founder Alvin Irby uses a metaphor to describe the uphill battle to better reading outcomes:
“Imagine if you told a kid that you’re going to teach them how to play piano, but the only time they had the opportunity to play the piano was during the lesson. And imagine if every time you came for a piano lesson, you were learning a new lesson, but you hadn’t had the opportunity to practice outside of the lesson.
When kids don’t have access to quality children’s literature outside of school, that’s essentially what we’re asking them to do. You can imagine, if a kid only plays piano during their lesson, their progress is going to be slow if there’s any at all.”
Barbershop Books’s Approach
Barbershop Books’s parent organization, The Reading Holiday Project, debuted officially in 2013, but the idea came to Founder Alvin Irby many years before. In 2009, the former early childhood educator was getting his hair cut across the street from his school when he saw one of his first-grade students sitting in the barbershop with nothing to do.
“The whole time, I just thought ‘I really wish I had a children’s book to give him,’” Irby said.
Irby saved his idea in an email and brought it to life years later as Reading Holiday Project, Inc.. The organization connects young Black readers to fun, culturally-relevant, and age-appropriate books to provide them with positive early reading experiences. To date, Barbershop Books has installed child-friendly reading spaces in 221 barbershops across 56 cities and 21 states to help young Black boys identify as readers.
Barbershop Books’s Strategies
Child-friendly Reading Spaces: Each barbershop partner receives a colorful bookshelf, window decal, 15 curated book titles, and early literacy training for its barbers. Spaces can be funded by individuals or neighborhood donors, and from there the team shares tips and strategies to ensure the program’s success.
Community Partnerships: The literacy program can be implemented across neighborhoods when sponsored by school districts, cities, or organizations to bring reading spaces to ten barbershops in a single area. Barbershop Books works with community partners through planning and development, outreach and barbershop selection, and program launch and evaluation.
COVID-19 Response: In response to the pandemic, Barbershop Books has pivoted its summer programming from its Annual Summer Book Giveaway to a variety of digital programs including virtual read alouds on Facebook Live and free a 3-week virtual summer literacy program entitled “Reading So Lit.” In partnership with Oakpoint Charitable Foundation, the organization has fundraised over $10,000 to expand reading opportunities for children in need during this challenging time. This new effort includes distributing more than 5,000 free new books emergency feeding sites throughout their program areas around the U.S..
Barbershop Book’s Best Practices
Fostering Reading Identity: Barbershop Books recognizes that a critical part of young Black boys identifying as readers is access to titles they enjoy, so they go directly to the source and ask boys what they want to read. The team takes these personal recommendations from boys to choose curated titles for the program.
“The extent to which a child identifies as a reader is inextricably linked to their motivation to read. Our goal is to help kids identify as readers and therefore inspire them to read more,” Irby said.
Leveraging Social Media: Taking advantage of their platform, Barbershop Books posts racial justice, educational, and inspirational content to their social pages including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to start conversations and encourage community involvement. To adapt to the pandemic, Irby and young boys are now hosting weekly virtual read-alouds on the Barbershop Books Facebook page.
Vision for the Future
Irby points to the lack of support Black children often experience in the classroom and inequities in funding for teachers and classrooms combined with lack of book access as the biggest obstacles to literacy and improving outcomes for Black boys.
“A lot of the ways in which schools interact with children who struggle academically or with reading are based on a deficit framework that really ignores the assets and strengths of students,” Irby said.
Policy priorities must shift to diversifying recruitment into early childhood education, improving teacher preparation programs, and ensuring book access for all children in preschool through the fourth grade.
“Schools need to think long and hard about the type of reading experiences, instruction, and support they provide children and start to question what type of early reading experiences will cultivate children’s intrinsic motivation to read.”
Barbershop books is committed to accomplishing their mission and expanding by integrating more digital content to “extend the Barbershop Books program beyond the barbershop” and introducing new companion programs. The team is currently developing an e-Library with titles from Black and authors of color and a similar Beautyshop Books program for young Black girls.
Alvin Irby is the Founder and Chief Reading Inspirer of Barbershop Books.
To learn more about Barbershop Books please visit: https://barbershopbooks.org/
