New Program Spotlight: Leyendo Juntos
Leyendo Juntos is a partnership between Dominican University and the San Pedro Elementary school in the Canal community of San Rafael, where many students are low-income, recently immigrated English Language learners. Twice a week, the Dominican students meet with young San Pedro students in virtual Zoom breakout rooms, where they read, practice comprehension, and play games together. Family members such as parents and siblings also join in from time to time.
The goal of Leyendo Juntos is to support and ignite a love of reading for the young readers, as well as nourish their sense of community, belonging, and support. As a side effect, we’ve also found Leyendo Juntos to offer many organic opportunities for digital literacy development, and our community partners in the digital literacy program have been able to offer several targeted interventions based on our observations in the LJ rooms. Meanwhile, the Dominican students have opportunities to learn about the many strengths of the young students and their families as well as about some of the structural barriers they navigate, all the while experiencing the joy of working with young children.
Research suggests that this time spent reading together can increase the literacy, communicative, and academic skills of all of the students involved, elementary and college alike. We have found the program to be an especially good fit for Dominican students enrolled in Effective Communications classes, as there is a natural relationship between the EC learning outcomes and the skills that the Dominican students must practice in the Leyendo Juntos space. The program is also a good opportunity for Spanish-language students at DU to hone their skills.
The program began in Fall 2020 as a rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on already severe opportunity gaps in Marin County. We initially opened it to first-graders, about 15 of whom attended regularly during the fall. We’ve since opened to K-3rd grade students, and now have about 60 who attend regularly. While many of the San Pedro students were initially reserved with a preference for passively listening while the DU students read, they are now incredibly animated. The breakout rooms are often filled with laughter, and the children have started to clamor over one another for opportunities to read aloud themselves.
In collaboration with Marin Promise Partnership, we have been tracking attendance data, digital literacy development, and engagement indicators, which will also be correlated with literacy and grade-level data provided by San Rafael City Schools, helping all partners understand the opportunities and barriers to literacy for the elementary school students and enabling us to provide real-time shifts based on the shared data.
In recent months, interest in Leyendo Juntos has been spreading, and we’ve had requests to offer it over the summer as well as to schools in other districts, particularly in West Marin where transportation to rich after-school programming is a perpetual challenge. In general, Leyendo Juntos helps close opportunity gaps for families who cannot easily transport their children to and from in-person reading programs, or who need their children to be at home for other reasons. In addition, the program offers equity and accessibility for Dominican students who may struggle to participate in community engagement in person but can thrive in a virtual context. We therefore expect Leyendo Juntos to continue to be relevant after the COVID-19 crisis has passed.
