A place to share books, music, techniques, and all things related to bilingual storytime!

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Fotonovelas for parental involvement at school!



Check out this very cool concept from the National Center for Family Literacy! Funded by a grant from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, they created two fotonovelas (both of which are available in English and Spanish) which teach parents how and why they should be involved with their children's education and schooling. Fotonovelas are a graphic style of book, similiar to a comic book, which are popular in Latin American. They combine pictures and words to tell a story.
The two fotonovelas created by NCFL are designed to help clarify the American expectation of parental involvement in education to people who may come from cultures without such an expectation. They explain such things as parent/teacher conferences and ways in which parents can be involved with children's schoolwork at home. PDFs and videos of these fotonovelas are available for free online. I'd love to see us at the library do something similar where we make videos that demonstrate what kind of assistance students and families can receive at our Homework Help Centers!

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Proteja contra los incendios!



Gabriela, my fellow Spanish Program Specialist here at CML, is a woman of many talents! Before joining our team, Gabriela volunteered her time to create this video along with the Columbus Fire Department to promote fire safety to the Spanish-speaking community here in Columbus.

There have been too many stories here in Columbus of fires destroying homes and families in the Latino community. This video is an example of a positive response to such tragedy. I wonder what opportunities there are for us to create other informative videos for our community? What other organizations could we partner with in such an effort?