Guatemala Project
By Kathy Davin
The Greater Washington Reading
Council has established a partnership with a literacy project in the rural
highlands of Guatemala. Beginning in 2011, GWRC will provide partial
funding for the purchase of materials for guided reading instruction. GWRC
members are encouraged to participate in other ways, including joining a
group of educators in July for a week of on-site teacher training in best
practices for literacy instruction. The focus is on first language literacy
and vocabulary development in the second language. The US teachers spend the
mornings observing and coaching in the classrooms and the afternoons
conducting workshops and helping local teachers plan instruction. Fluency
in Spanish is desirable but not required. The coordinator of the project is
Kathy Davin, reading specialist at Key Elementary in Arlington.
Before
the 1996 Peace Accords, students who attended school in the Ixil region of
Guatemala were immersed in Spanish from the minute they entered the
building. There was no instruction in the home language. Few learned to
read. This region was disrupted by the Civil War. Life is basically
subsistence agriculture. Families earn a little cash by pooling together
what little coffee they grow and selling it through a cooperative. But the
outside world is about to overwhelm this region of Guatemala with the
introduction of improved highway access, dam construction, radio, cell
phones, etc. Literacy is essential to the survival and well being of these
communities. Literacy is best introduced in the language of the home.
The Centro Educativo William Botnan is a
Kindergarten – sixth grade primary school located in the village of Santa
Avelina, municipality of San Juan de Cotzal, department of Quiche,
Guatemala. The language is Ixil, one of the 23 Mayan languages spoken in
Guatemala. The school was built by and is partially funded by the
non-governmental organization HELPS International (www.helopsintl.org).
The teachers at the school in Santa Avelina have worked with a team of
multi-national educators to establish a program of bilingual literacy. The
goal is to introduce literacy in the home language, Ixil, and transition to
literacy in Spanish by the end of sixth grade using a 90/10 model (90% home
language instruction/10% Spanish instruction in Pre-Primaria, or
kindergarten, transitioning to the reverse by grade six).
HELPS envisons "Hub" schools that successfully
implement a well-designed learning program to serve as teacher learning
centers and technology resource centers for surrounding schools. The
school in Santa Avelina will serve as the educational headquarters for the
Ixil triangle and as a model for expansion of educational initiatives
throughout Guatemala.
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| Students in PE class, school building in
background |
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| Jan 2012, proofreading Ixil translations of A-Z
books on computer screen |
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| July 2011 visiting team from US and local
teachers at a picnic at the waterfall |
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| July 2011 US team & Guatemalan translators at
dinner in the school’s kitchen |
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| close-up of a page from an A-Z book translated
from Spanish to Ixil |
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| July 2011 US team & Guatemalan translators at
dinner in the school’s kitchen |
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| July 2011 US team & Guatemalan translators at
dinner in the school’s kitchen |
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| July 2011 Students in the school library with
Spanish texts donated from the US |
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| July 2011 US visitor takes a running record with
a 3rd grader |
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| July 2011 local teachers at an afternoon
workshop with US teachers |
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| July 2011 local teacher implements strategies
taught by US visitors |
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| July 2011 local teacher implements strategies
taught by US visitors |
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| July 2011 student reading a book written in Ixil
by local teachers in collaboration with US visiting
team |
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