Prietita Y La Llorana Thesis

Purpose: This study was inspired by the literary elements in the book Prietita y la llorana. The book used to be passed down orally through generations, until it was published. It demonstrated how literacy was taught and passed on in their culture. Schools in South Texas believe their Mexican-American youth are not at the same literacy level as the rest of the children. However, the Family Institute for Early Literacy (FIELD) used this book to begin a study to see if these children are in fact literate when they begin school, they just aren't aligned with the current standards of teaching. Their goal was to discover the methods that these parents used to teach their children literacy.

Data Source: A Title I school was used to conduct this study. Parents who had children that went to these two low income elementary schools were used. These schools were located in the large Urban Areas of South Texas. Sixty four parents of the Mexican-American heritage were selected. Out of these 64, 54 of these parents had recently immigrated and only spoke Spanish. The other 10 parents were bilingual and had lived in the community for more than 2 generations. The children used in this study were between the ages of three and four.

Methods: The FIELD researchers conducted a week long class that gathered
One major weakness was that the researchers should have added an interview portion that allowed parents to share which methods they used to teach their children literacy. This would have given the researchers an area to be looking for, rather than searching. Another weakness was that the children used in this study were extremely young. To get a better understanding of children that are entering elementary school, the researchers should have used children that would be starting within the next month. This would have given a better representation of the literary levels of enrolling elementary school