On Tues, Dec 13, Spanish National Honor Society (SNHS) hosted a reading event at Oswego Public Library.

Members Lexi Rodriguez, Sofia Montoya, Juliana Ruiz, Abbigail Hernandez, and Yazmin Santillan read stories in Spanish to children of all ages. In planning this event, SNHS said they wanted to spread both the holiday spirit and the Spanish language to young children. 

“Reading books is a great way for entertaining anyone in general and for kids who are barely learning how to expand their first language it is easy to get them engaged and entertained while having fun,” Montoya said.

 To get in the holiday spirit, SNHS selected holiday classics including: Froggy Se Viste (Froggy Gets Dressed), Si Llevas un Ratón al Cine (If You Take a Mouse to the Movies), La Navidad de Clifford (Clifford’s First Christmas), Franklin Tiene un Mal Día (Franklin has a Bad Day), and ¡Como el Grinch Robó la Navidad! (How the Grinch Stole Christmas!).

“In picking the books, we all agreed on a Christmas theme to get the children in the holiday spirit and spread some Christmas joy, while also helping them develop their Spanish skills through us reading to them in Spanish,” Hernandez said.

Due to COVID putting a halt on many opportunities, this was SNHS’s first event working with children. SNHS additionally wanted to create an enjoyable environment for the children in the community, but with the well-mannered children, the SNHS members were able to enjoy the event as well.

“I think seeing all the kids get excited about the books and seeing how they listened to the readers quietly and wouldn’t fidget for an hour, really made us grateful to have such a great group of kids join us for our event,” Ruiz said.

Based on the result of this event, SNHS plans to host another reading event in the spring and continue volunteering at food banks to assist the Spanish speaking community if there is any language barrier present.

Aryanna Griffin is a staff writer for Oswego East’s online news magazine The Howl