Chapel Hill ISD purchases bilingual books to promote student bi-literacy

CHAPEL HILL, Texas (KLTV) - Chapel Hill ISD in Smith County is seeing a need for more bi-literacy support for bilingual students. So, the district is responding by purchasing 1,700 books in the Spanish language.

Kissam Intermediate School is the first school to receive the new books. They are all in Spanish with a variety of content and all hand-picked.

Bilingual and ESD Director Jadwiga Mews wanted to build more bi-literacy among students, as a majority of the district population is Hispanic with Spanish as their native language.

I wanted to make sure that in taking care of our English learners and our bilingual students, specifically, that we had the resources to get them excited to read again. And so, whenever we find books that they’re excited to read that are actually culturally relevant, they’re going to be more excited and more engaged into wanting to read more which is ultimately going to increase their literacy.”

These books will allow Kissam to expand their Spanish selection, as it is currently limited.

Mews said literacy test scores for the district dropped after covid. The school has seen growth since then, but she hopes this purchase will take the students’ learning to the next level.

She plans to find books for the elementary first, to prepare them for the later grade levels, and eventually work her way up to buying books for the middle school and high school.

“If we can teach our students now to know how to actually use their language and show them why it’s so important to actually keep the Spanish language, and how it can actually help them acquire the English language, they’ll be a whole lot more prepared for those college-ready tasks that they have to complete later on.”

Chapel Hill ISD will be hosting a literacy night for parents on Jan. 26 to showcase the new books for the parents and give them tools to help their child read at home.

The rest of the order is making its way to the school and will be ready for students to read in the library by February.

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