Did you know that May is Bilingual Literacy Month?
So it is with extreme pleasure that I can share that the 2018 L4LL Latino Children's Summer Reading Program is now live!
Five years ago, my business partner Viviana Hurtado, Ph.D. and I launched the first national online summer reading program for Latino families. Our goal was to support literacy among Latino children, who consistently come in last when it comes to literacy.
Our mission has been to raise literacy rates through pedagogically sound, culturally relevant content, and technology is rooted in our belief that all educational and professional achievement, as well as economic empowerment, rests on the mastery of basic reading skills.
The program has changed a lot over the course of these five years as we strived to find the right way to make it accessible to families and educators. And, in fact, Viviana and I stepped back from it for the last year or so as she started a new job and I managed my pregnancy, move to Texas, caring for my mother, and the birth of my baby. But we knew that we had a really great program, and we are happy to say that we think we have found the best way to bring it to bilingual families and educators. All of our reading programs are now available as direct downloads from both our newly updated website and our new TpT store.
We have three programs available.
Our free BASIC Summer Reading Program
This consists of printable resources to help your kids have fun reading in English or Spanish during the summer. It contains:
• Our 2018 Summer Reading Lists
• Reading passport
• Reading logs
• Bookmarks
• Postcards
• Pledges
• Certificate of completion
You pick the materials that best suit your family’s/student’s needs.
Each year, we update our Summer Reading Lists to include new titles. You’ll only find Latino children’s literature on our lists as we strive to highlight this small – but important! – genre by Hispanic authors and illustrators. Choose books from our suggested 2018 reading lists of Latino children’s literature, or pick your own. Our program is easy, flexible, and fun!
ALL of the activity pages are available in English and Spanish.
Our Summer Reading CAMP
This is a 10-week DIY Summer Reading Camp with culturally-based activities to develop reading and writing skills. It is for children ages 6 to 12 years old and includes more than 100 activity sheets designed to boost literacy skills over the summer break, as well as additional tools for educators and students. The program also includes original reading passages and illustrations by Latino children’s authors Alma Flor Ada, F. Isabel Campoy, René Colato Laínez, and Lulu Delacre.
Each week covers a different theme:
- Art/Arte
- Family/Familia
- Folklore/Folclore
- Food/Comida
- Immigration & Heritage/Inmigración y herencia
- Music/Música
- Nature/Naturaleza
- Poetry/Poesía
- Sports/Deportes
- Summer/Verano
You can now buy the individual themes or save 10% when you buy the complete CAMP!
Again, all the activities are available in English and Spanish.
The L4LL Latino Children’s Year-Round Program
For those of you who really enjoy our Summer Reading CAMP and want to use it during the school year, this extension is for you!
We’ve created three additional themes for educators who would like to use our CAMP during the school year. These three themes are:
- Holidays & Traditions/Fiestas y tradiciones
- Famous Latinos/Latinos famosos
- Seasons/Estaciones
The third theme, Seasons/Estaciones, is meant to replace the Summer/Verano theme in our Summer Reading CAMP. This then gives you an additional 75 pages and a total of 12 full weeks of materials to complete over the course of the semester or year. You decide your time frame, we supply the base materials.
Like our CAMP, these themes contain culturally-relevant literacy activities to boost your students’ reading and writing skills. You’ll also receive reading suggestions relevant to each theme.
If you want to learn more about what activities are found in each theme, visit our website's shop or our new TpT store!
Oh, and YES! We're participating in TpT's sitewide sale in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, so if you take a look there, you'll find all of our products on sale up to 25%!