Explore the Fun of Reading Together
How Girl Scouting Translates into Empowering Hispanic Girls to Read with Follow the Reader

By Jennifer Goddard, staff writer

Think back to your first day of kindergarten. Were you nervous? Anxious? Maybe even a little bit scared as your parent let go of your hand and walked back to the car? Imagine how scared you'd be if, when you entered the classroom, you didn't understand what the teacher and other kids were saying.

Like many other monolingual kindergarteners, Maria Martinez-Wolff, diversity coordinator for the Girl Scouts of Chaparral Council, remembers her first day of school as "utter confusion." She explains, "As a Hispanic, I first entered grade school speaking only Spanish. [Being monolingual] has a tendency to make you mute, silent…the feelings of muteness and anxiety form a block to learning. The fact that I was able to read early on and figure out 'the code' made me a successful learner in school."

Family Literacy Project

In an effort to remove blocks to reading and learning, Girl Scouts of the USA provided 20 Girl Scout councils with funding to design and implement a local family literacy project, courtesy of a generous grant from the SBC Foundation. Councils are working to involve girls and their families in reading activities across the country using GSUSA's bilingual resource, Follow the Reader: A Girl Scout Family Reading Project.

Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Girl Scouts of Chaparral Council is using their Follow the Reader project as a springboard to better serve the Hispanic community. "This is one of our biggest challenges," explains Dorothee Hutchinson, the council's director of membership services. "Currently, 22% of our current membership identifies themselves as Hispanic; however, according to 2000 Census Bureau figures, 40% of the population in New Mexico is Hispanic. We are trying to have a girl membership that reflects that same percentage."

Story-telling, Bookmaking, and Reading…to Dogs

This summer, the council will launch its Follow the Reader project in Albuquerque and expects to serve 60 girls and 60 adults. Girls and their parents (or adult caregiver) will meet once a week at one of the three sites—two community centers and one homeless shelter—and enjoy fun activities like story-telling with local Hispanic authors, hands-on bookmaking, and reading to assistant dogs. Yes, dogs.

"Dogs are non-judgmental and don't care if a child switches from Spanish to English," says the project manager, Naomi Sandweiss. "There can be a lot of anxiety about reading or reciting the alphabet aloud, especially in a language that isn't your first. While they're petting the dogs and reading to them, children immediately lose some of their inhibition."

This project will help the Hispanic girls of Albuquerque learn to read in a safe environment. The council will partner with Hispanic teachers, authors, and illustrators as well as other youth-serving Hispanic organizations like the New Mexico Association for Bilingual Education, the Albuquerque Business Education Compact, and the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

"We're building long-lasting relationships," says Sandweiss. "We see the Follow the Reader program as an investment in the communities we serve."