Rincones de lectura comes to san isidro: New contexts for biliteracy and language maintenance

Findings from a bilingual Spanish-Náhuatl school in Central Mexico are examined to determine the impact of Spanish language literacy materials on the indigenous language. The new Spanish materials were introduced into the school, located in one of the most linguistically conservative localities in the region of Tlaxcala and Puebla states, as part of a nation-wide progamme to expand access to children’s literature in outlying rural school districts. Observation centred on three aspects of students’ participation in the progamme: (1) language choice and language alternation, (2) interactions with literacy materials, and specifically,(3) the use of the indigenous language in reading and writing activities. The question is raised, whether the goals of generalized literacy and universal access to primary education may be incompatible with the goal of maintaining indigenous languages that have historically been restricted for the most part to oral domains.