Field Update: The COIL Books Are Here

We are so excited to share these photos of children enjoying books that were created especially for them. This project is the result of an incredible international collaboration between graduate students at Montclair State University in New Jersey and CIDE in Mexico City. Together, these students worked across borders to learn about the children living in migrant centers and encampments and then create bilingual books tailored to their needs. This week, we brought the books to Mexico, printed and bound them, and finally put them into children's hands. The response was everything we hoped for.

The children were amazed to learn that university students had created books just for them. Again and again, they asked questions about the students and proudly carried the books around with them. Beyond the excitement, the project helped address a challenge we face every day: finding stories with the right content, reading level, and language for a highly diverse population of children. These books were engaging, culturally relevant, and accessible. A picture is worth a thousand words, and the smiles on the children's faces say more than we ever could. We are excited to incorporate these books into our literacy curriculum, virtual library, and weekly reading sessions.

So how did this collaboration work? Students from CIDE collected demographic information from migrant centers and encampments across Mexico City. Because migration is constantly changing, official data are often unavailable or quickly become outdated. Their research showed that many of the families currently come from Venezuela, Ecuador, Honduras, Colombia, Haiti, and Cuba, and that children span a wide range of ages, languages, and reading abilities. Using this information, graduate students in Speech-Language Pathology at Montclair State University created bilingual books designed specifically for children on the migration trail. This week marked the debut of the books in the field, and seeing children connect with stories created just for them was a powerful reminder of what can happen when students, educators, and communities work together across borders.