Custom Literacy

I’m Jessica, the creator of Custom Literacy. Formerly a bilingual kindergarten teacher of 3 years, I am now dedicated full-time to a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program through Antioch University, Los Angeles, to teaching writing in higher education, and to creating children’s books in Spanish. I grew up in Southern California in a little town called Pearblossom, speaking English only. Once I took a Spanish class for the first time in high school, I was hooked to its lyricism and poetic syntax. I went on to study Spanish as a major at California State University Long Beach, living in Spain and Mexico intermittently. In my final year of college, I learned about a little thing called Bilingual Education. Children learning two languages at once, beginning in kindergarten? What an incredible concept! So I spent the following year in Guadalajara, working on my bilingual teaching credential, and subsequently taught kindergarten at a Dual Immersion school in lovely Santa Barbara. Any bilingual teacher will tell you that teaching in two languages is twice the work; there are very few materials available in the minority language, so hours upon hours are spent translating! That’s when I decided to embark on this project, to create the literacy materials in Spanish that we were lacking. Shortly after, I found Joan X. Vazquez, an illustrator from Xalapa, Mexico whose contemporary illustrations are fresh and innovative. He was recently proclaimed winner of Catálogo de Ilustradores Infantiles y Juveniles de la FILIJ 2013 (Catalog of Children’s Illustrators)!! We’ll do our best to bring you the most relevant Spanish literacy materials possible, made on both sides of the border. Abrazos! ~The Crew

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