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Teacher Commentary: Using Tomás and the Library Lady in the Classroom
Concerned about the summer literacy slide among her students, resource teacher Rashmi Kumar coordinated a pilot of the teacher guide for Tomás and the Library Lady in a third-grade classroom in semirural Pennsylvania over 3 weeks in May 2006, shortly before school let out for the summer vacation. Families at her school were predominantly White, 20% Latino, and from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds. Within her third-grade classroom, about 30% of the students came from monolingual Spanish-speaking families, with students showing a range of proficiency in the acquisition of English.
The team that used the teacher guide included the classroom teacher, a school translator (who was Latina), the school librarian, and the children's librarian at the township's public library. This team worked with the teacher guide as a jumping-off point and an initial reservoir of ideas, but modified it to suit their particular classroom community. For instance, they added a family literacy book bag partnership activity, with which they had previously had success at their school. And for the first time, they established a connection with the township public library in order to keep students reading over the summer months.
Like many schools across the country, our school has been experiencing a steady influx of immigrant and migrant Spanish-speaking families. Our school's Latino children often have limited skills in reading and writing in English—and the long gap during the summer months puts them at a further disadvantage when they return to school in the fall. What's more, many of the students at our rural school simply have minimal opportunities to continue reading during the summer. Given this context, our team planned this pilot project with several guiding concepts in mind.
Key Concepts
- The notion of continued literacy among children and adults
- Reading with enabling adults helps children learn even if the adults have low levels of print literacy
- Resources in communities can be harnessed to complement the roles of schools in promoting reading and improving literacy skills of students and families
- Usage of native languages expands literacy in acquiring skills in a new language
- Using a home–school literacy activity called “book bags” to foster a connection between students and their families and between classroom and home
Grade Level: 3
Getting Ready
We pursued four different activities to get ready for the project:
1. Secured permission and resources from the school administration. We were able to show to the principal that the project aligned with skills that our students needed to develop under the requirements of our state standardized testing. These included comprehension of text, written responses to open-ended questions, and understanding vocabulary in the context of story. Because of the connection to our school literacy goals, the principal agreed to help with funding for supplies and transportation costs for a trip to the township public library.
2. Invited classroom families to participate in the family literacy book bag activity. We sent home letters in Spanish and English to invite families to participate in this voluntary home and school reading activity. The letter read:
Dear Parents,
We invite you to participate in a home and school literacy connection. We will be using the book Tomás and the Library Lady by Pat Mora. The project will give you and your child the opportunity to read and reflect together. This literacy unit aims to make children aware of the importance of reading on a regular basis and of the resources available to them during the school year and summer. Your child will receive complete directions for participation. Also, to ensure a relaxed reading experience for everyone, this will not be a graded task and may replace daily independent reading.
In response to the letter, all but 1 of our 27 classroom families signed up to participate.1
3. Enlisted the participation of the local public library. We explained our goals regarding the prevention of summer slide in reading skills to personnel at our local public library, with whom we had had some prior contact. Since these goals complemented their goals of increasing summer readership, they were interested in partnering with us. The children's librarian there was very helpful and designed a meaningful field trip to inform the students of resources available at the public library.
4. Made a book bag for each child in the class. “A book bag project nurtures children's literacy learning and engages all the participants in interactive literacy activities.”2 Each book bag consisted of a manila envelope to fit inside students' backpacks, containing one of each of the following items:
- A journal for students to write in and draw their impressions/reflections about the story and about reading together, which would later be used for parent reflections as well. We included in the journal some writing prompts, which we added to as the project progressed.
- A copy of Tomás and the Library Lady in English for families fluent in that language or both an English and a Spanish copy for English Language Learners or for families where Spanish was spoken by a parent at home.
- An invitation to students to add one of the following to the book bag: a list of books they have read in the school year, wish list for summer reading, location of township library, directions to the township library.
- Complete directions for participation, including a project timeline.
Our Project, Day by Day
We implemented the pilot project in six mini-engagements over 3 weeks in May, right before our students finished school for the year and began their summer vacations.
Day One
We used large- and small-group sessions to collect each student's responses about their reading habits, how they got access to books, what kinds of books they enjoyed reading, and if they read by themselves or with someone else. Following this brainstorming session, the students gathered to listen to Tomás and the Library Lady read in English and in Spanish.
Day Two
We focused on the first half of the book and used some ideas from the teacher's guide. Students listed all the languages they had heard at their dinner tables and family reunions. On a world map, we traced the concentrations and origins of all those languages. Some of the students requested to hear the story again, so we read Tomás and the Library Lady again in both languages. Later, within small groups, the students were asked to compare the translations of some key words and phrases. They jotted down the ones which seemed interesting in their book bag journals.
Day Three
We focused on the second half of the book, enlisted the students' understanding and knowledge about the first half, and used their reflections to help them understand the new content. The students completed their responses to writing prompts like:
- In the story Tomás and the Library Lady, what time of the year was it? What kinds of clues in the story did you use to figure out your answer?
- What was very special about Papa Grandé?
- Who do you think can take the role of Papa Grandé in your life?
The students took the book bag home for the weekend to share and read with their family members. We provided a specific page for the adults to share anecdotes about their memories of reading when they were children, as well as their commitments to help their children learn to read. Prompts for the parents were typed in both languages. The section for parents included questions like:
- What is special about reading with a child?
- What kinds of things encourage your child to read?
Parents, grandparents, older siblings, and even a couple of aunts responded in the language of their choice—Spanish or English. We were delighted that 23 of the 26 students who took the assignment home completed it with their parents or extended family members.
Day Four
One of the highlights of this project was our prearranged class visit to the local public library. The librarian for the children's section welcomed us with a variety of ready activities that made the students become aware of the reading resources like the public library in their own community. All of the students were allowed to sign up for their very own library cards. The children's librarian also gave them a list of reading-related activities for the summer and information sheets indicating summer hours and borrowing privileges. As the trip came to a close, she promised to come visit the students' classroom and present them with their new library cards.
Day Five
Each of the students had the opportunity to share something from their book bags, such as a family response in their journal. As they shared the contents of their book bags, both the students' and their families' excitement about reading became clear to us. We then broke the students into small groups to respond to the following questions:
- Does a book about storytelling make you want to read?
- Do you read books by yourself or with someone?
- What is special about reading with someone?
- Do you have a favorite topic/theme/subject that you like to read about?
The whole class regrouped to discuss the short- and long-term benefits of reading. We then used these freshly generated ideas in the creation of posters. Each student designed posters to inspire children and adults to read and continue reading during the summer.
Day Six
The children's librarian from the public library came to visit our class. She brought with her a library card for each child who had signed up. Along with the cards, she brought some favorite stories that she read to the class. The students invited her to see all the posters that they had created and presented her with a few to take back to the public library. The school librarian also displayed some of the students' posters in our own school building.
To conclude the project, our teaching team members and our students each made an individual commitment to continue reading throughout the summer. We each also shared examples of how we would stand by our commitment. Then, we read Tomás and the Library Lady one last time!
Conclusion
Our team worked hard to set up this project, but it was well worth the effort. We all learned a great deal from this venture. I hope that other teachers will read and reflect on what we did, use those aspects that work for their classrooms-and invent new activities to make school, home, and community connections in service of students' summer reading.
What we all learned:
Students
Whether English- or Spanish-speaking or bilingual, all of our students enjoyed the story of Tomás and the Library Lady and were enthusiastic about the pilot project. “I think it was very brave of Tomás to go to the library and ask for books,” commented one student. “Many times, I become the storyteller in my family—just like Tomás,” another pointed out. Our students found reading the story with their families, visiting the public library, getting a library card, and designing the inspirational posters to be the most enjoyable and meaningful project activities. We were thrilled to see that the students followed through on their commitment to read over the summer. When we spoke with participating students in the fall, we were delighted to learn that almost two thirds (17 out of 26) of them had visited the library during the summer!
Families
From the very start, parents and other family members enthusiastically encouraged their children to participate in this family literacy venture. Family members had the opportunity to participate in their children's literacy learning and to discover new ways to support their children's literacy learning in the community over the summer.
We read many eloquent and moving responses from family members, some in Spanish and some in English, in their children's book bag journals. Latino parents, for example, expressed a sincere commitment to help their children learn the English language and, in some cases, to increase their own literacy or English-language skills. One father wrote in Spanish, “I like to sit down with my children when they do homework, so that I can learn the English language. This way I will be able to communicate with my children's teachers and other parents.” In some cases, more than one adult in the family contributed journal entries. One parent dictated her response in Spanish to her son, who then translated it into English. In class, he then shared his mother's response in Spanish along with his own translation. It was a moment of wonderful personal achievement on many levels. He shouted out in glee, “I can do it! And so can my mom!”
The commitment of all families to foster reading during the summer months was particularly remarkable. Equally impressive was their resourcefulness in acquiring books and reading materials. Several parents indicated the use of summer garage sales as an inexpensive way of acquiring books for their children. Many parents were surprised to find out that the services and borrowing privileges of public libraries were available to any community resident free of charge. Some called the teachers to confirm that what their children were telling them was indeed the case.
The incentive to see their children's art work displayed at the public library coaxed many families to visit the public library. Once inside the library, parents checked out books for their children. Gradually the cycle of returning books and checking out new ones became a weekly ritual. Students later reported that even their parents got into the habit of checking out books for themselves. We think that this example—of parents checking out books to read themselves—must have been a powerful one for their children.
Teaching Team
This pilot project changed our thinking about working with the community. We learned about some wonderful strengths in our community—particularly among our classroom families and at our local township library. We realized that the community was a true resource for us as teachers in supporting our students' learning.
Often, children from migrant families at our school are found to have low levels of print literacy, even in their native language of Spanish. Based on what we knew about our students, we had always assumed that the same held true for their family adults. However, this project taught us otherwise. We discovered that many of the adults had much higher levels of print literacy in Spanish than we had presumed.
We also learned that the local public library was an able partner in supporting our students' summer reading during the months when our own school library was closed to students. Visiting the township library, where our students saw for themselves the free and easy availability of reading materials, helped make our dream of students' summer reading a practical reality.
The public library came to see the school as a resource as well. The librarians at the local public library realized that partnerships like this one could increase the frequency of summer readership, as well as increase membership in summer reading programs that they sponsored.
Finally, the success of this partnership with the public library encouraged us at school to look around, seek help, and build other alliances in our community. The cumulative effect was powerful. We now feel that we can depend upon resources in our community to help us achieve our goals. For example, this experience inspired us then to seek out and use local museum resources. We no longer see it as an either/or choice between whether an activity is going to be a school sponsored event or one endorsed by the organizations in the community. We all believe that we can work as a collaborative entity with shared goals in mind.
End Notes
1 One of the teachers from the team worked instead with this one student. The teacher responded to the open-ended questions in the book bag journal. The teacher and student worked together on most of the student responses.
2 To read more about the book bag family literacy activity used in this pilot, see Merenda, R. C., & Kumar, R. (2006). Chronicles of a mentorship: A book bag partnership becomes successful via interactive professional dialogue. Childhood Education, 82(4), 228–232.
Reference
Mora, P. (1997). Tomás and the library lady. New York: Knopf Books for Young Readers. Hardcover. Also available in paperback from Dragonfly Books, with editions in both English and Spanish (Tomás y la señora de la biblioteca). Tomás, a Mexican American child of migrant farm workers, discovers the joy of sharing stories from his grandfather at home and the joy of reading books from the librarian at the local library.
Written by Rashmi Kumar, November 2006
In addition to her many years in the classroom, Rashmi Kumar researches and writes about learning opportunities that promote parental involvement in curriculum development and evaluation. Rashmi is currently a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, researching ways to increase the participation of non-English-speaking families in school activities.