Local Video
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| ABCs of bilingual literacy |
By: DAVID HENKE, Staff Writer
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Posted: Tuesday, March 3, 2009 11:22 pm
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Samantha Mazurek has more than one reason to be proud of her latest school project.
A member of the Amistades program in the Northfield Middle School, the sixth-grader just finished researching, writing and illustrating an alphabet book in Spanish, which in itself is tough work for any student.
But what makes Mazurek really excited is the fact that her book, along with 84 other Spanish alphabet books hand-made by her fellow students, will be donated to Latino families in Northfield to promote early childhood, native-language literacy.
“I hope that younger kids can learn their native language, because it’s really important,” Mazurek said. “And then they can learn English and be fluent in both languages.”
Mazurek’s excitement is echoed by other students and staff working on the service learning project, called Laptime Literacy. Devised by sixth-grade Amistades teacher Sara Mikkelson, the project is giving the students a chance to get involved with a growing but frequently marginalized part of the Northfield community.
As part of the project, students in the Spanish-oriented Amistades program spent an hour a week in January and February making their own alphabet books. Each page is emblazoned with one of the 29 letters of the Spanish alphabet, and a Spanish word and phrase that corresponds with the letter and fits a vocabulary theme the students chose. Then the students filled their pages with brightly-colored drawings to further illustrate the vocabulary word and theme they picked.
The completed books will be donated on March 18 to Allina Clinic in Northfield, where they will be distributed to Latino families with young children via Spanish interpreter Jan Foley.
Foley, who works full time at Allina, has seen a growing number of Latino families accessing the clinic services — especially parents of young children.
“We have a lot of families who probably don’t have a lot of books for young children in their homes,” Foley said. “It’s a really nice way for parents to share their own language with their kids.”
“I think the parents will really appreciate these things coming out of the school for them,” said Amistades teacher Ruben Alvarez. “They’ll be able to see children’s books in their own language, which makes environments and places they go a little less threatening. They’ll see that the community and the district care about Latino education as well.”
Roughly a third of the Amistades students involved in the project are Latino themselves. For those students, Alvarez said, the project is also a chance to help out friends, neighbors or family members.
“That’s the part that I think they’ve really embraced, because they found that they’re empowering their heritage and who they are, they’re empowering the next generation,” Alvarez said.
“Kids want to reach out and help others,” said Amistades teacher Anne Jarvis. “For the non-Latino kids, I think it has really raised their awareness about how many Latino families we have in our community, and how there’s a need for this.”
ASK THE AUTHORS
How do you hope the Laptime Literacy project will help children in Northfield?
Josua Perez, 11
“It will probably help them at a young age, so the kids understand a bit more and when they are older they’ll know the basic things.”
Cerendy
Fuentes
Sanchez, 12
“I like to help them to see that reading is fun, so they don’t think that reading is just boring.”
Greta Nelson, 12
“Spanish is growing pretty much in this area; Northfield is getting more of both languages.”
— David Henke can be reached at dhenke@northfieldnews.com or 645-1100. |
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Kind hearted and well meaning children in this article, to be certain. But am I reading this correctly that public funds are being expended to teach Spanish speaking pre-schoolers to speak Spanish?
I am with Ramsauer on this one. I am german and swedish are the schools going to spend money teaching my children those native languages too? Or how about a minority language of Saamiin in Sweden? Maybe we need to refocus priorities of basics in schools.
Actually, these are books that were made, you know, for reading, so they are helping Spanish speaking children learn to read in the language they speak. It's the same concept as English speaking families giving their children books in English - so that they can learn to read in the language they speak and are surrounded by. Just because these kids speak Spanish does not mean they can read it, so we should be applauding this project instead of finding ways right off the bat to criticize it.
I think some criticism is due here or at the least questions. Cuts are being made to the supply budget in my children’s classrooms with more to come. This money could be used for better purposes. I have complete faith in the parents of these Spanish speaking preschoolers to help them learn Spanish. If the supplies are donated privately that would be great and a good learning experience for the Spanish language classes in the schools. Never the less, the school district finds ways to spend more and more money on the most peculiar things, then they wonder where all the money went.
The Northfield School District did not finance the Laptime Literacy Project. Funding for the project was provided by Northfield Area United Way and the United States Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, with additional support from the Northfield Healthy Community Initiative.
I appreciate the update by David Henke. Does that mean the teacher or school was paid for the time with those funds.... costs of production are only one of the costs. I think the criticism of myself and Ramsauer is not on the ingenuity or creativeness of the kids it is the priorities and time of the school vs what should be taught at home. Keep in mind that schools are not designed not should they be to teach everything a kid needs to know. Taxpayers should expect parents to take some responsibility of raising their children.
"English speaking families giving their children books in English" Yep I agree that is the point and if Spanish Speaking families give their children books in Spanish that is great too. The criticism is not at that - it is the schools thinking somehow this is their responsibility.
I applaud the students for the endeavor...does it belong inside the classroom... that is the question.
Question???
How many of these children are criminal illegal aliens? What about their parents?
Are we providing these materials to these individuals without checking their residency status?
For the sake of diversity, are we providing services to criminals and law-breakers?
Parents and community members should appreciate the fact that the schools are trying to foster a sense of service and community in children. There is more to learning than reading, math, and science. Even so, as the article stated, "the sixth-grader just finished researching, writing and illustrating an alphabet book in Spanish". Sounds like a well-rounded, educational school project in which the last step just happened to involve giving these books to those who will actually use them, rather than having them sit in a display shelf at school.
Although Ramsauer and dapa2 fail to mention what exactly “it” is that should be taught in homes and not in school, I’m going to assume we’re talking about something similar. Yes, perhaps these values of service and community should only be taught at home and is the sole responsibility of the parents to instill in their children. However, what is wrong with it being encouraged at school, where the ultimate goal is to create a well rounded individual, not just a kid who knows how to add, subtract, and use correct grammar? The school and the parents should be working together in this goal, not having strict lines that create a division between what is only to be done at home and what is only to be done at school. It is even possible that kids will bring this sense of empowerment to action in their communities into their home where it may not have been present otherwise.
Once again, there are many different aspects of learning besides the "3 Rs". It IS the school’s responsibility to bring about the best development in children as possible, and I believe the Northfield School District, by allowing and encouraging students to be active in their community, is doing a great job to create well-rounded individuals who, after all, are the future of this country.
And we can do without any discriminating/ignorant comments regarding the Latino community. There's no need to generalize in this manner.
Once again, there are many different aspects of learning besides the "3 Rs". It IS the school’s responsibility to bring about the best development in children as possible, and I believe the Northfield School District, by allowing and encouraging students to be active in their community, is doing a great job to create well-rounded individuals who, after all, are the future of this country.
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I agre in general with the comment above. Howvere over the past few years we have neglected the three "R's" in favor of silly "feel good" programs.
As a result the cost of schools have gone up and our children are falling behind against the rest of the world.