Reading
Giving Migrants the Gift of Literacy

When the students and parents are migrants, how can you make every season a reading season? One Florida member shows the way.

It's 9:30 a.m. at Denee's Trailer Park in Apopka, Florida, and while many migrant parents are working in local fields, fisheries, or nurseries, others are huddled in the trailer-turned-classroom where NEA member Sonia Mariani-Hendrickson is about to start a lesson on literacy. For the next two hours, the parents and young children will play together, talk together, and most important, read together.

Mariani-Hendrickson is on a mission to help parent and child gain the basic skills needed for a lifetime of pleasure with words. "We know that when parents are able to read to their children, play word games, and sing songs, it's another step toward literacy," says Mariani-Hendrickson, coordinator of the Title I Early Intervention Outreach and MigrantRead Program for Orange County, Florida. "This is particularly key when you have migrant parents, because they play such a key role in their child's education."

The Florida program is based on the MotherRead and FatherRead Program in Raleigh, North Carolina, where instructors use children's books, nursery rhymes and stories, and the parents' life experiences to help teach. "Because most of our migrants come from Mexico," says Mariani-Hendrickson, "we help them develop reading skills in Spanish first, then move to bilingual books, and finally to English books. It's a gradual process, but very effective."

The tutors also show by example, demonstrating the skills of wordplay and songs, and of reading with children. "The first thing you need to do is assess the parent's own level of literacy and cultural knowledge of things like native nursery rhymes," says Mariani-Hendrickson, who made a point of learning those rhymes herself. Then she showed the parents how to use them to teach their children. "Slowly, they acquire the language and the skills," she adds.

The process appears to be working. Mariani-Hendrickson, who has run the program for two years, says an average of a dozen parents and 10 children participate in the weekly sessions--impressive, given the transient nature of the population. Some, for example, are around only during one agricultural season, but Mariani-Hendrickson and her staff pound the pavement, aggressively luring them to the program by selling not just literacy, but other perks, too.

"We offer support services, such as health screening, additional tutoring, and access to community services," says Mariani-Hendrickson. "The migrants now see the benefits of our outreach effort."

And the children? Mariani-Hendrickson counts the successes one child at a time. One five-year-old boy recently answered all of her questions and reading cues--encouraging prog-ress. He then modeled the reading skills for his younger siblings, a sure sign that the learning will extend throughout the family.

Students at the middle school and high school benefit from the program, too. So-called "advocates" meet with them for after-school tutoring, counseling, and mentoring, and also offer a special leadership program and transportation home. "These advocates are now sought out by the parents, as well," says Mariani-Hendrickson. "They now feel they have an ally in the school system in this program." That's rewarding, she says.

"It just shows you that when it comes to reading and achievement," Mariani-Hendrickson says, "even the most transitory of students--the migrant student--won't be left behind."

--Anita Merina

You Can Do It, Too!

How can you help migrant students in your area? Here are some tips to help you get going:

Find the migrants and their families where they work and gather. Let them know your program is available to them. Getting the word out is key.

Try to link the literacy program to other services such as health care.

Create a comprehensive program that reaches students at all levels--early literacy for young readers and middle or high school programs for struggling older readers.

Gain the migrants' trust by reaching them at their level. Use their cultural knowledge and resources to create lessons. Respect their culture and stories--they will be a plus to learning.

Be persistent. It takes time to gain trust while working with different language and skill levels and cultural experiences.