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Peggy McLeod, Ed. D. is Deputy Vice President of Education and Workforce Development at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR).

Today we are featuring one of First Book’s celebrity blog series. Each month First Book connects with influential voices who share a belief in the power of literacy, and who have worked with First Book to curate a unique collection that inspires a love of reading and learning. All recommended books are available at deeply discounted prices on the First Book Marketplace to educators and programs serving children in need. Peggy McLeod, Ed. D. the Deputy Vice President of Education and Workforce Development at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), writes on engaging Latino families and children in reading and learning.

Any student who has parents that understand the journey from preschool to college is better equipped to navigate the road to long-term student success. While parent engagement is critical to increasing educational attainment for all children, engaging Latino parents in their children’s schooling has typically been challenging – often for linguistic and cultural reasons.

The National Council of La Raza’s (NCLR) parent engagement program is designed to eliminate these challenges and create strong connections between schools, parents, and their children. A bilingual curriculum designed to be administered by school staff, the Padres Comprometidos program empowers Latino parents who haven’t typically been connected to their children’s school. Many of the parents the program reaches are low-income, Spanish-speaking, first and second generation immigrants. Through Padres Comprometidos, these parents gain a deeper understanding of what the journey to academic success will be like, and how they can play a role in preparing their children for higher education. Prior to participating in the program, not all parents expected their children to attend college. After the program, 100% of parents indicated that they expected their children to attend college.

Much of Padres Comprometidos success rests on the program’s ability to address language and culture as assets, rather than as obstacles to be overcome. This asset building strategy extends to NCLR’s partnership with First Book. Together, we’re working to ensure Latino children of all ages have access to books that are culturally and linguistically relevant, books they need to become enthusiastic readers inside and outside of the classroom. Click here to access the three parent engagement curricula developed by NCLR—tailored to parents of preschool, elementary and secondary school students.

Below you will find a few tips and titles that can help you engage families and get children – and their parents and caregivers – reading and learning.

La Llorona

1. Find ways to connect stories that parents know about to help them engage in reading and conversation with their children. This Mexican folktale can open that door: La Llorona .

Spanish-English Dictionary

2. Keep an English/Spanish dictionary handy to use when you have a parent visiting or to give away to a parent or caregiver who needs it. It will show them that you’re making an effort to engage in their language of comfort, such as Webster’s Everyday Spanish-English Dictionary.

The Storyteller’s Candle

3. Learn about the children you serve and their heritage, and identify books that will affirm them. This Pura Belpré award winner is actually about Pura Belpré, the first Latina (Puerto Rican) to head a public library system: The Storyteller’s Candle.

Grandma and Me at the Flea

4. Share books that include some of the everyday experiences of the children and neighborhoods you serve, like this story highlighting the value of community and family: Grandma and Me at the Flea.

My Colors, My World

5. Bilingual books provide family members and caregivers the opportunity to read the same books their children are reading, but in their language of comfort. Families will love reading about all the colors of the rainbow in English and Spanish: My Colors My World.

Sign up with First Book to access these and other great titles on the First Book Marketplace.

Jill Eisenberg, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators. 

The U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Science (IES) and What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) released the latest educator’s guide to present best instructional practices for English Language Learners. Over the last several weeks, I’ve looked at several different strategies for teaching English Language Learners based on that guide’s recommendations.

Today, we’ll take a look at how to incorporate vocabulary instruction into activities that support listening, speaking, and writing practice for English Language Learners. This is the final week I will focus on the guide’s first recommendation: Teach a set of academic vocabulary words intensively across several days using a variety of instructional activities.

Drumbeat in Our Feet

Using the Lee & Low informational text, Drumbeat in Our Feet, as my model text, I applied the guide’s recommendations on how to choose an appropriate text and words for English Language Learners and how to teach the vocabulary over several days. See how I chose these words here and taught their meanings here.

Using Drumbeat in Our Feet and the IES’s process, my target words are origins, vital, ethnically, diverse, unique, vibrant and varied from the “Origins of African Dance” excerpt.

1. IES: Facilitate structured discussions to increase opportunities for students to talk about academic words. Always anchor these discussions around the topics that are present in the text and that do not have a clear-cut right or wrong answer. The goal is for students to learn to articulate a position or point of view and learn to defend their perspective or analysis. (P. 20)

Lee & Low: Over the course of multiple days, I am teaching a different part to each word’s meaning. After doing so, I want to create open-ended questions for whole or small group discussion that will allow my students to practice using the target words.

As my target words are origins, vital, ethnically, diverse, unique, vibrant and varied from the “Origins of African Dance” excerpt in Drumbeat In Our Feet, I would use these throughout the week for peer-to-peer discussion. This looks like:

• Why would the authors want to discuss the diverse land and countries of Africa in a book about African dance?
• Why might African dance vary in form?
• Why should we study the origins of African dance today?
• What factors might contribute to the diversity in African dance?

2. IES: Require students to use target words in their writing activities. (P. 21)

Lee & Low: Use the prompts above or focus on vocabulary-specific prompts. This looks like:

• What are the origins of your family?
• Write about the origins of a superhero.
• Create a story about the origins of the universe or how life began.
• Is it important to you to feel unique? Why or why not?
• What are at least two things vital to all life forms?

Although we cannot explicitly teach all academic and content-specific words our students will need to know in their educations and careers, we can be strategic in how we teach 5-8 words a week so they can apply these word strategies to new words they come across on their own.

Further reading on supporting English Language Learners in the classroom:

• Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners in Elementary and Middle School—Part 1
• Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners—Part 2: Choosing a Text and Vocabulary Words
• Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners—Part 3: Teaching Vocabulary in Layers
• 

  African Dance: Drumbeat in Our Feet

  Similar text to use with grades K-2 is African Dance: Drumbeat in Our Feet 

• ¡Colorín Colorado! resources on Academic Language for English Language Learners
• Drumbeat in Our Feet also has a BookTalk with creators Patricia Keeler and Julio Leitão

We pride ourselves on publishing diverse children’s books that feature characters and cultures from around the world. In 2012, we expanded when we acquired Children’s Book Press, an award-winning multicultural publisher based out of the Bay Area. Our new CBP imprint is a great place to find high-quality bilingual English/Spanish picture books and many more books by talented authors and illustrators of color.

We’re very excited to report that we’ve reprinted several Children’s Book Press titles already under our CBP imprint, and we have more on the way! We know some of you have been waiting quite a while to see your favorite CBP books back in print, so we’re happy to share our most recent reprints:

Animal Poems of the Iguazú/Animalario del Iguazú, by  Francisco X. Alarcón, illustrated by  Maya Christina Gonzalez

Bears Make Rock Soup, by Lise Erdrich, illustrated by Lisa Fifield

Birthday in the Barrio/Cumpleaños en el barrio, by Mayra L. Dole, illustrated by Tonel

Drum, Chavi, Drum!/¡Toca, Chavi, Toca!, by Mayra L. Dole, illustrated by Tonel

Featherless/Desplumado,  by Juan Felipe Herrera, illustrated by  Ernesto Cuevas, Jr.

From North to South/Del Norte al Sur, by René Colato Laínez, illustrated by Joe Cepeda

Home to Medicine Mountain, by  Chiori Santiago, illustrated by Judith Lowry

Making Magic Windows, by Carmen Lomas Garza

A Man Called Raven, by Richard Van Camp, illustrated by George Littlechild

Moony Luna/Luna, Lunita Lunera, by Jorge Argueta, illustrated by  Elizabeth Gómez

Nana’s Big Surprise/Nana, ¡Qué Sorpresa!, by  Amada Irma Pérez, illustrated by  Maya Christina Gonzalez

Prietita and the Ghost Woman/Prietita y la Llorona, by  Gloria Anzaldúa, illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez

Quinito, Day and Night/Quinito, día y noche, by  Ina Cumpiano, illustrated by  José Ramírez

A Shelter in Our Car, by Monica Gunning, illustrated by Elaine Pedlar

Soledad Sigh-Sighs/Soledad Suspiros, by  Rigoberto González, illustrated by  Rosa Ibarra

What’s the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses?, by Richard Van Camp, illustrated by George Littlechild

We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts on these new reprints!

For a full list of Children’s Book Press titles that are currently available from Lee & Low Books or to place an order, contact our ordering department toll-free at 1-888-320-3190 x. 28. We also have a PDF of our latest catalog here.