Student Testimonials
Being a mentee of Reading Is Fun (RIF) and participating in weekly events of the club are definitely wonderful experiences and precious memories of my freshman year. At RIF, I was able to enjoy reading books with not only another international student, but also two of the amazing mentors. At the beginning of each weekly meeting, I was able to test my memorization of new words I learned during the last meeting by playing games like hang-man and word-matching games with mentors. It is a great opportunity to improve my vocabulary and learn more words that are not likely to learn academically. Besides, one of my most favorite parts of the weekly meeting is sharing my thoughts about the book with mentors. By doing that, I gained more knowledge about the book from different perspectives and also practiced my summarizing and analyzing skills. I highly recommend RIF to international students because it not only helps students improve their vocabulary, communication and analyzing skills, but also is a great way of making new friends while enjoying the fun of reading!
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- Jiaying Liu '21
“From Reading Against Gravity to Reading for Fun”
“Somehow they are into their coats and out teh dorr &ixu#g*... Zzz...” That was every time when I try to read long English text a few months ago. To deal with this issue I had tried many ways to keep myself awake. Including reading while sitting on the ground, which ended up with my dad woke me up from the ground. But let’s put that away now. I found myself not sleepy at all while reading in RIF because in Reading Is Fun (RIF), mentors in your group will help you to summarize the paragraphs that you’ve just read, and let you share any thoughts on your mind. Sharing thoughts about the paragraphs is my favorite because I am often surprised by the different opinions/experiences from my groupmates and learn different perspectives about the text. Besides, the summary part, which is the part that keeps me awake, gave me a perfect chance to practice organizing my language and conveying my ideas clearly. To wrap up, RIF is the perfect place for anyone who wants to learn about active reading, view texts from different perspectives, or simply want to read for fun!
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- Zhenting Ling '21
I joined Reading Is Fun (RIF) in the spring semester of 2016 and be a member of the club during my whole undergraduate career at Stony Brook University. I just want to say that RIF is a club that everyone can enjoy.
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As an international student with an introverted personality, it made me nervous to join any social club when I was a freshman. Although I used to love reading books in my native language, I was afraid to read books in English because of my pronunciation and poor quantity of vocabulary. However, RIF is an amazing place where I can feel comfortable enjoying the books and talking with others. You don’t have to worry about making any mistakes or asking questions while reading the books, mentors here are trying their best to ensure a friendly and judgment-free atmosphere for non-native speakers. Every time I read aloud the books, my mentor, Liz, will patiently teach me the words I don’t recognize and the right pronunciations of them. My English has improved a lot here and I also have become more confident in speaking English. Additionally, you can feel free to express your ideas about which books you want to read in the meeting no matter what genres they are. My favorite genre of literature is detective fiction and have read many brilliant works in this genre during the meetings of RIF.
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In an era of information overload, I think the pure joy of reading books is precious. Now I have finished my master's degree study and planned to apply for the Ph.D. degree, I still keep the habit of reading in my daily life thanks to the great experience I have had in RIF. I feel so lucky to join the RIF club, it really helps me get a head start in my future academic career.
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- Zhongling Yu '22