ZAPATITO ROTO, AHORA MISMO TE CUENTO OTRO. Integrated Skills Project

Catalina Jiménez

Esteban López

José Ignacio Valenzuela

Introduction:

Our country is a nation with a lot of potential in almost every aspect: economically, scientifically and culturally. Apparently, what we're are only missing for succeeding as a developed country is the drive that will take us to glory. Currently, scholars in the field say that this drive that we are missing may be education (Bulnes, Cruz-Coke, Krebs, and Soffia 19), which currently is, as most of us should know, in the hole of the hurricane because of its lack of efficiency. One of the aspects that prove this lack of educational efficiency, are the terrible rates of reading comprehension that our country has and the lack of

motivation that our children have for being able to change this situation. These two facts are the ones that worry us the most, as we consider reading comprehension and reading habits, one of the main pillars of educational efficiency and national success. With this project, not only do we plan to create awareness among people about our poverty as a country in reading comprehension and reading habits, but to change this situation as much as we can, being serious, realistic and taking in consideration that we are young students but not powerless.

"School" by Luchi Capurro

"Sandra" by Liis Klammer

The Problem:

Our current reading situation.

The facts: As you may know because of a common idea that appears to exist among us Chileans, we are not very good readers. Actually, we are terrible readers. But none of us would believe that we were as terrible readers as our research made us realize. According to the work "Plan Nacional de Fomento a la Lectura, Lee Chile Lee", between a 52% and 53% of adult population does not read, while only a 26% of the adults who consider themselves readers, fit in the category of a frequent reader. (Bulnes, Cruz-Coke, Krebs, and Soffia 19). Another worrying fact that Lee Chile Lee could give us is that only a 22.3% of the population owns between 26 and 50 books, while 18% owns between 1 and 10 books (Bulnes, Cruz-Coke, Krebs, and Soffia 19), which is a negligible number. On 1994, the UNESCO made a study about reading comprehension and reading frequency in Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Paraguay, and Venezuela. The figures that came out of that study where pitiful, making us realize that we are actually the worst country in Latin America in reading comprehension and reading frequency. A 50% of people between 12 and 50 years old, proved to be in the first two levels, which are the lower levels. (Alliende and Condemarin 16).

Continuing with the discoveries that Lee Chile Lee collected, a 59% of students in the age of 15 years old are under the level of reading comprehension that they are expected to have, considering our economic development as a country (Bulnes, Cruz-Coke, Krebs, and Soffia, 22). When Chileans were asked why they didn't read, their answers were: lack of interest, lack of time and lack of chances to do it (Bulnes, Cruz-Coke, Krebs, and Soffia, 19). As a group, we believe that these answers are just excuses to avoid reading, mainly because they weren't raised with a good impression about reading, being forced to do it for the most part of their lives. Another important and alarming fact about reading in Chile is the lack of organization between all the associations that are trying to solve this situation. “Las dificultades actuales para elaborar un diagnóstico coherente se [encuentran] en la disparidad de criterios de trabajo en encuestas similares realizadas por diferentes entidades” (20). In other words, another difficulty that we are facing to generate a good analysis of the problem, is that all studies are not done by the same entity. Therefore, they don’t get the same results because they don’t use the same material, nor criteria, obtaining as a final result a series of inconsistencies.

Why is it necessary to solve this problem?

According to the study "Literary scores, human capital growth across fourteen OECD countries (2004)", which was applied to fourteen countries of the "Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económico", countries with a reading comprehension only 1% higher to the international average have between a 2.5% and 1.5% higher levels of productivity and PIB per capita. As future teachers, economic numbers should not mean too much to us. Nevertheless, we should not forget that a good national economy has also individual aftermaths in citizens. That is to say, an efficient national economy means better jobs, and better jobs mean better salaries. Thus, the perspective of having a better life quality (Bulnes, Cruz-Coke, Krebs, and Soffia 18-19). In addition, and being the following one of the main reasons why this issue is so relevant for us as future teachers; reading introduces us into a new world, and gives us things such as knowledge, language development, and critical thinking development.

According to Mabel Condemarín's work “Estrategias para la enseñaza de la lectura”, when children read any type of literature, they make their vocabulary and language wider (Condemarín 18). In other words, when children read, they improve their communicative skills. This happens as they learn, gradually, the syntax of the language. According to the previous, fostering reading at the beginning of the scholar life is crucial because everything would be helpful either for school or some future works. In Condemarín’s book is also mentioned that: “Vista la lectura como determinante de procesos de pensamiento, ella cumple una importante labor social” (Condemarín 32). That is to say, reading has an important role among society. It makes you an open-minded person because you accept new things that can appear in your way, and that is one of the things that Chile needs, to have more acceptance and knowledge. Besides fostering reading in children, another important aim of our project is to educate people with a thoughtful opinion and critical thinking, thus, creating in them the future Chilean society that we must have.

Untitled by Metin Fejzula

HOW ARE WE GOING TO CREATE AWARENESS AMONG PEOPLE

AND SOLVE THIS SITUATION?

Preamble: This project could have been fictitious. However, we decided to make it as possible and reachable as we could in order to make it happen and not leave all our work in just a university project. Taking this into consideration, we submitted the following project for a grant here at the university and we won it. This way, everything that we are about to say, we are going to apply it with the funds with which the university rewarded us. As our objectives are increasing reading comprehension and reading habits in children, we designed a two-part reading fostering program, both of which will be applied simultaneously. They will be directed to ten year old children and their surroundings. Why ten-year-old children?: Because we consider that at this age children are already able to analyze a book for their age properly, but they are still malleable enough for creating and modifying habits in them, making ten-year olds the perfect age for our purposes.

Why their surroundings?: Because fostering reading in children is not a goal that only us (the members of this group) or the children by themselves can do without help. We need that all the people who will be eventually in touch with these children be aware and compromised with our goal as well. These two parts that will constitute our legacy are: an educational project and a physical campaign which will support it.

a) The educational project: About the length of the educational project, it won't be brief. Nevertheless, we believe that we can obtain good results in a term of approximately six months. This project will consist in the following four stages:

• First Stage: Preparing the children to read. In this stage, we will make an individual research of every child. We will try to know them, and we will inquire in their personal likes, hobbies and motivations in life.

Untitled by Saucestin

Depending on the results of our queries in every child, we will guide them in the search of a book that could fit with their preferences. While we do this, we will teach the children as well as their parents, that books are actually within reach for everyone and that they are not hard to get, as the popular thought has led us to believe. It is important to highlight that we will foster a universal reading. That is to say that we will consider in the specter of books that the children have available, all the books in the world that have an Spanish version. Even though the government entities have good reading fosterer programs, at the same time they try to promote Latin American literature. Our thought is that we should do things by step, and prioritize: if we want to promote Latin American literature, first we have to make our children like reading, have a reading habit and a good reading comprehension. To make this happen, first they need to find the book that they like, which won't necessarily be between the books that Latin American literature can offer. That is the reason of why we want to promote a universal reading: if the child wants to read a book that we could find in Russian literature (or in any other international literature), and it e xists translated to Spanish, the child has the right to read it. And we have the moral obligation of introducing it to the child.

• Second stage: Reading the first book for

pleasure. This second stage's main objective will be to achieve a first good impression of reading, through the full reading of the first book that the children are going to be able to have chosen. We will buy every child the book that he or she chose with our guidance. We consider that it is important that the child owns this first book, in order to make it the first brick of his or her personal library. After the book's purchase, we will guide the children in the formation of a reading habit. For this duty, we will need to involve the teachers and the parents (especially the parents) as they are the ones who will keep fostering the children's reading at the end of the project. Besides guiding the children in the achievement of a reading habit, we will guide them in the generation of a critical thinking (according to their age, of course). We intend to reach this by the generation of instances (both at home and school) in which the children will be able to express their opinions about the book that they chose.

Untitled by Sid Black

"The Unexpected Teleportation of Nicholas Fowl" by Stephen Beadles

At the end of this stage, the children are supposed to have read the whole book that they chose, and have generated the early development of a reading habit and a critical thinking.

• Third stage: our hypothesis: discovering the

importance of reading. After having a good first impression of reading, therefore, discovering that reading can be fun, we have the theory that children would be able to find "the good side" in a book not particularly chosen by them. For proving our hypothesis (which will be the determinant part of the process, because it will prove that we actually generated a reading habit and critical thinking in the children), we plan choosing the same book for the whole group of children that will participate in our project. Of course, according to the general likes, but not necessarily according to the particular ones. This way, we plan to discover if the children will be able to find "the good side" of a book not chosen by them, or not. After the purchase of the book chosen by us, just as in the previous exercise, we will generate instances in which the children will be able to give their opinions and express their development through the course of the project. In this stage, we plan to meet with the children's parents once in a while in order to monitor how have they have been fostering their children's reading and how compromised they are with their children's personal growth.

• Fourth stage: In the long term. When children willingly finish reading the book that we chose for them, our duty will be done. In this stage, we will leave our project in the children's parent's hands. We will make them compromise with the fact that they are now the ones in charge of looking for a new book for their children, and keep fostering their reading habits and critical thinking.

As well as in the previous stage, we will meet with the parents once in a while, for monitoring if they fulfilled their commitment. We will repeat this interview process for about three months, in order to see the results of our project.

b) The physical campaign: The physical campaign will contain, in turn, a visual campaign and a virtual campaign.

• The visual campaign: We will paste colorful, cheerful and friendly posters on the streets, which will state in just a few simple words the importance of reading. These posters will be of three types: one designed for catching adults, one designed for catching the youth, and one designed for catching parents that could transmit the poster's message to their children. Besides the propagandistic message that will foster reading, these posters will also have little paper strips that will suggest several books of different genres, according to the poster's age target. With this campaign, we will be able to motivate the people that surrounds the children that are going to be part of our project.

• The virtual campaign: We will create a facebook account, a twitter account and a blog, in order to massify our visual campaign. All the accounts will contain updated information and special content designed for keeping fostering reading, not only in children, but in everyone.

Untitled by Alexis Mire

Conclusion:

What we could call "our reading situation" , is currently not as good as it could and should be, considering that Chile is a country with enough potential for becoming a developed country. The government has tried to fix this issue through many ways. Nevertheless, as we can see, it has not done the impact that is needed. As young students who will become teachers, we designed a project to - first - create awareness about the concerning situation of Chilean reading habits, and - secondly - our own educational project for genuinely trying to start solving this problem in our own student level, which we are going to apply thanks to the grant that we won in the University.

As visionaries, we would like to change the world. However, we know that for achieving this goal, we have to start little by little. Maybe we can't change the world at this level, right now, being nineteen year old students. However, we can change a sand grain, and maybe a whole handful of earth. That's what we want to accomplish, and what we will accomplish with this project: Do something. Theory and good intentions become useless if they are not applied.

"Old books" by Liis Klammer

Works Cited: - Bulnes, Felipe, Luciano Cruz-Coke, Magdalena Krebs, and Alvaro Soffia, eds. "Plan Nacional de Fomento a la Lectura Lee Chile Lee." Lee Chile Lee. N.p.. Web. 19 Nov 2012. - Alliende F.& Condemarin M. (1982). La lectura: teoría, evaluación y desarrollo. Andres Bello. - Condemarín, Mabel. Estrategias para la enseñaza de la lectura.. Print.