Upon realizing that almost all of the children-- grades 1 to 6--were reading in the exact same lifeless, monotone voice, even during sentences with question marks, exclamation points, and quotations, I sensed that something was inherently wrong. After examining closely the teaching methods in first and second grade I concluded that the teachers had been successful in implementing the phonics method of teaching reading but have failed in instructing the children to the convert the letters' phonetics into comprehensible written language. Considering the undeniable importance of literacy being at the basis of education, as well as its service as an invaluable tool to many children who will finish school after sixth grade and begin working, I say if a school should give a child anything it must be the ability to decipher text.
In a lecture held one day in the third
grade, Instructor Elda discussed the problems of illiteracy having
negative impacts in the communities of Guatemala. To make her point
further clear, she asked the children in the room to raise their
hands if their parent's knew how to read and write. In a class of
twenty-five students, six raised their hands. Furthermore provoking,
and a testament to the results of this exercise, in a study revealed
in the national newspaper Presa Libre, the municipality of Panzos,
where Mercedes is located, is red-flagged and identified as having
the second highest percentage rate of illiteracy in the country
(47.38%).
The numbers' are clearly daunting,
however, we are going to fight this simply by planting seeds for the
future and our solution to this is getting books inside the house for
the kids to read. Whether it be due to cultural or financial
reasons, currently the families of Nueva Mercedes do not own books
therefore the children appear to be estranged to them. With hope of
reversing this we have begun to provide books to the children via a
small library system where they are given the opportunity to
check-out a book for a number of days at a time to bring home or
elsewhere. As of now we have forty books, varying in reading level
and subject matter, and the plan is to increase this number
substantially, diversifying as much as possible, including not only
fiction but historical, scientific, and environmental topics.
Operating for about three weeks now, it has become popular among a
small group of students and I believe that we will see greater
participation with the accumulation of more books.
We are currently writing a “Donation
Call” similar to that which we made for our laptops to request
books from individuals, as well as sharing our small campaign with
our friends CampusTech and Empresarios por la Educacion in the city
who both have expressed interest in helping promote our cause. With
the summer approaching it will be a very straight-forward objective
for Li Ch'utam to raise books for the 2014 school year and formally
introduce it at the start of the school year to acclimate the
children to the process.
Of course, simply providing books will
not improve the situation alone. It is going to take a great amount
of joint effort between the volunteers and teachers, and with their
evidently being lack of communication between the two parties, a
common objective such as increasing literacy could be a means of
bringing us closer together.
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”
-Dr. Seuss
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