The Elgin YWCA in January will begin a Spanish literacy program designed to make Hispanics more fluent in their own language.

The theory behind the new program is that it will be easier to learn English if Hispanics master their native tongue first.

Some Spanish-speaking immigrants who come from Mexico and Puerto Rico do not read and write their own language well, said Sonny Garza, past president of the Elgin Hispanic Network and a member of the committee that decided to try the program.

“If we can educate them in their own language first and then go to English as a second language, it will be easier for them in the long run,” he said.

Dale Braun, literacy volunteer coordinator for the YWCA, said that six volunteer instructors have been recruited for the program. These volunteers will begin working with groups of two or three adult students in January.

Dr. Ron Perlman, director of the Illinois Resource Center in Des Plaines, an organization that provides support for teachers working with language diversity, said that research supports this approach. There are two factors involved, he said, one of which is predictability. “In reading, you need a strong oral language base,” he said. “That is how you learn to read. You are able to predict.”

He also said that if one learns to read in his or her first language, it is easier to transfer the skill to another language, rather than learn initially in a second language.

“Literacy is literacy,” he said. “It is not language specific.”

He said learning to read languages is like learning to ride a bicycle. “Once you learn to ride a bike, you can ride a 5-speed or a 10-speed, because you’ve learned how to balance.”

Laura Barth, who publishes Vision de Elgin, a Spanish-English biweekly newspaper, has volunteered to work with students.

“For (Spanish speaking) adults who do not know how to read Spanish, it is difficult to learn English,” she said.

Jack Fields, director of bilingual education for Elgin School District U-46, said that he was glad to hear of the program.

“You only learn to read once,” he said. “It makes the best sense to do it in the language with which you are most comfortable.”

He said that he had to see this firsthand before he was a believer. He described watching Spanish-speaking children learning to read Spanish first before English.

“We had a girl in 2nd grade, and I was told she could read English, and I didn’t believe it,” he said. “She read the book beautifully, because she had developed sufficient English oral language.”

He said that students eventually do make the transition to English.

“Once they reach the point of sufficient English language, you can’t keep them from it,” he said.

He said that if the adults are taught to read only English, and they are illiterate in their own language, what they read will be jibberish.

Braun stressed that the new program is not a substitute for English classes. Some of the students, she said, will be enrolled in English as a second language class at the same time they attend Spanish classes; others will attend only the Spanish classes. It is a personal decision on the part of the student, she said.

The YWCA, she said, has been offering English as a second language classes for the last 20 years, and about 900 students enroll each year. While the program draws mainly Spanish speakers, it also attracts natives of Cambodia, Laos, India, Iraq, Russia, Switzerland and other countries.

She said that depending on the success of the Spanish literacy program, it may be expanded to include speakers of other languages.



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