Laura Kleinmann: Numero uno: ¿Por qué ahora pensando en esta experiencia, se llama el niño de cabeza?
Rita: Back at Oyster Bilingual School, there’s a place where kids can go to put it all together…everything they’ve learned about phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension.
Laura: Some people call the library the heart of the school. It’s a place that’s different than the classroom, than the hallway, than the soccer field. It’s a place that’s just dedicated to reading. And the minute that the children see me, they identify me with what they’re reading — “Ms. Kleinmann, Ms. Kleinmann, I just finished reading my Harry Potter”, you know… “Sra. Kleinmann, ya terminé de leer da-da-da.”
Rita: Our young poets have traveled across the hall to visit with librarian Laura Kleinmann — and to check out some new books.
Laura: Ay, Andrea, ¡es uno de mis libros favoritos! Una Biblioteca para Juana.
Laura: At Oyster, we have a bilingual program. Our children learn to read and write and to speak and listen in Spanish and English from the time they arrive in pre-kindergarten.
Laura: Learning to read is not easy, it’s especially not easy when you are learning to read in your second language. Libraries that are filled with exciting books are a great motivator for children. It’s the place where the world opens up to them, and hopefully it will open up to them in both languages.
Rita: Of course, most American schools are not bilingual, but many do have children whose first language is not English and that presents an opportunity for a librarian.
Laura: Imagine how you would feel, you are walking into school where the words around you are unintelligible because you’ve only heard your family’s native language and you come to the library and you see a book in your own language. I think that that could change a child’s perspective on school and make a child maybe wake up and want to come to school in the morning.
Rita: And the benefits can be carried home in a backpack.
Laura: They can take books home that they can share with their parents and their aunts and uncles and grandparents and say, “Mira, mamá, un libro en español,” and the parent feels like, “Wow, the school is valuing my culture, the school is valuing my language.” The library is a perfect place to make that bridge. Even if the school isn’t bilingual.
Laura: Muy bien. ¿En ingles?
Girl: (reading) The Desert is My Mother.
