Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
LEESBURG – Fourth-grade students in the Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program at Leesburg Elementary on Tuesday celebrated the publication of a book they wrote as a class.
The book, “¿Cuantos Cuentos Cuentas?,” was published through Studentreasures Publishing. People can order copies through the Studentreasures website at studentreasures.com.
DLI teacher Clara Borda said this is the third year she’s had students write the book as part of the DLI program. Through developing the book, Borda said the students are able to show they have achieved the Spanish language standard for their grade by telling stories in Spanish.
They started the project in September with an idea of what they wanted to talk about in their story. Then the students drew pictures and wrote the draft of the story. The students sat down with Borda to go over the story and make corrections.
There were no restrictions to what the students could talk about, but Borda said they did want to read kind stories about values. The stories were to show how creative the students were. Some of the students wrote personal narratives, personal experiences and fictional stories.
Lindsey Wallen, Borda’s partner teacher in the DLI program, said they added an English summary to explain what is happening in the students’ stories.
“We have a lot of our parents that don’t speak Spanish either, so it kind of gives them a good background of what the students might be talking about,” Wallen said.
Writing the books has helped students learn Spanish because in fourth grade students focus on verb conjugation to tell stories in the past tense, so writing the books helps students remember the rules around verb conjugation.
“With this book, they are able to know that they can use the language in real context and can show they really use the correct tenses,” Borda said.
Wallen said the project encourages students to learn to love to write, whether that’s in Spanish or English.
“And I think that’s huge for them because when they write what they want to write, they’re usually happier students and the enjoy it better,” Wallen said.
In the age of technology, the project also shows students the importance of pen and paper, as well as the importance of grabbing a physical book with their hands and touching the pages “because from my personal perspective, that is how you really enjoy reading more than with an iPad,” Borda said.
