Promoting Reading among Mexican American Children. Promoting Reading among Mexican American Children.
Stories are most meaningful and best able to promote literacy when they speak to a student's world.
Good books can help children develop pride in their ethnic identity, provide positive role models, develop knowledge about cultural history, and build self-esteem. However, Mexican American students in the United States often do not experience literature in this way. This Digest identifies key challenges, recommends classroom strategies, provides literature selection guidelines, and suggests reading lists for various grade levels. Beginning in the 1940s, Mexican American literary characters were developed largely by European American writers who were removed from the cultural experience of the Mexican American minority. Between 1940 and 1973 there were only four or five books a year published on Mexican American themes by the major publishers of children's literature.