Scholastic & National Latino Advisory Committee Create ‘Lee y Seras’.

Recent reports indicate that Latino children, the U.S.’s largest and fastest growing minority youth population, are performing well below the national average in reading with 56 percent of Latino fourth graders reading below grade level. While Latino families place a high value on education and want their children to succeed in school, parents need additional resources that assist them in fulfilling their important role of fostering children’s early literacy in conjunction with schools, libraries and teachers.

Responding to the community’s desire for an innovative approach to improve the reading and literacy development of Latino children, Scholastic, the global children’s publishing and media company, convened a broad-based partnership which includes a National Latino Advisory Committee, the Latino Community Foundation (a supporting organization of the San Francisco
Foundation), KDTV Univision 14, Verizon Communications and Weston Woods Institute to develop Lee y seras (Read and you will be), a multi-faceted, multi-year reading initiative. The project, which will inform, engage, and help prepare families and communities to support the reading development of Latino children, will be piloted in the San Francisco Bay Area for one year before launching nationwide, and reflects Scholastic’s commitment to bringing the very best educational and reading materials to the Latino community.

Lee y seras was created by researchers, community leaders and educators in the Latino community and employs a wide array of materials and outlets to deliver the messages that children’s language and reading development begins at home, and the community has a responsibility to help address the reading needs of Latino children. Key components of the initiative include:

* Caravana Lee y seras, a mobile learning center created in conjunction with Weston Woods Institute, that will host ongoing workshops on reading development for families and childcare providers in Latino communities;

* Public service announcement (PSA) produced in collaboration with KDTV Univision 14, Lee y seras’ official Spanish language television sponsor, will deliver key campaign messages and encourage Latino families to build on the strengths of their Latino culture to talk, sing, share stories, and read with their children;

* Lee y seras Family Album, an audio guide that features culturally authentic stories embedded with “illustrations” of how reading and literacy skills are learned and fostered in everyday activities;

* Lee y seras Community Leadership Institutes designed and conducted in partnership with Verizon Communications to strengthen the community’s ability to address the reading needs of Latino children.

“Lee y seras was developed by the Latino community for the Latino community to reinforce with parents and teachers that traditional everyday activities, such as storytelling, singing songs, and recalling folklore, poems and dichos (proverbs) build early language and literacy skills,” said Teresa Mlawer, President of Lectorum Publications, a division of Scholastic and member of the National Latino Advisory Committee. “Parents will also learn new ways to fulfill their important role in helping kids learn through Lee y seras workshops and materials.”

In the first year of the program, the Latino Community Foundation, and its parent organization The San Francisco Foundation, will help bring the message of Lee y seras, the Caravana and the Family Album to local Bay Area non-profit
organizations and childcare centers. In addition, the Lee y seras Community Leadership Institutes, supported by Verizon Communications, will help Latino community leaders gain a deeper understanding of the reading issues facing Latino children and how literacy achievement is linked to educational attainment. These in-depth training sessions will strengthen Latino community leaders’ capacity to advocate for the reading and literacy needs of Latino children.

“Lee y seras will help the entire Latino community embrace reading and become advocates for enriching children’s lives with reading practice and the scholastic achievement that follows,” said Marcela Medina, Chair of the Latino Community Foundation and General Manager of KDTV Univision 14. “We are excited about working with our communities in the San Francisco Bay Area to bring the joy of reading to our children.”

Gil Conchas, Ph.D., associate professor at Harvard University will assess the effectiveness of the Lee y seras initiative during its first year through interviews with participants and observations of the program’s trainings and workshops. Dr. Conchas’ pilot study will inform plans for the subsequent years of the national initiative.

In addition to the Lee y seras initiative, Scholastic is continuing its mission of promoting cross-cultural diversity through The Misadventures of Maya and Miguel(TM), a new animated children’s series, which received the largest-ever children’s TV grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to develop a children’s multi-media project. The series is set to air on PBS KIDS in the fall of 2004. In addition, Scholastic recently launched a new Spanish imprint, Scholastic en Español, which will publish an array of Spanish language and bilingual books for children of all ages. Scholastic en Español will include original licensed publishing and original Spanish language works from best selling Latino authors including Luis Sepulveda and Jose-Luis Orozco.