Los Dichos Moms

I came across an article about Los Dichos Moms, a group of about 80 moms who read weekly at elementary schools in the San Jose, CA area. According to the story in the Mercury News, Los Dichos de la Casa is a storytelling program where "the main activity is reading from books that reflect life in Latin America or immigrants' experiences in America. Hearing these stories in Spanish reinforces for the children that their heritage is important, the moms say. Hearing the stories read by real moms only enhances the experience." The article mentioned two books by Carmen Lomas Garza as examples of what stories are read to the kids: Cuadros de Familia (Family Pictures) and Making Magic Windows (an explanation of the craft of papel picado). This project not only enhances the educational process for the students but it gets the parents more involved in the schools, so much so that there is now consideration that the nickname might have to change since dads have expressed an interest in doing some reading. Sounds good.