
SLP student Laura Gonzalez used art background, ability to speak Spanish, and experience in communications science and disorders to help children in Boston area
Elementary schools in the U.S. often use stories to teach lessons in reading and writing. Now, whether they speak Spanish or English, students in two elementary schools in Boston, as well as MGH Institute clients, can use newly created materials based on a fairy tale to learn vocabulary words, work on reading comprehension worksheets, or other activities, thanks to Laura Gonzalez, a second-year Masters in Speech-Language Pathology student.
During her first year, Gonzalez and others in her cohort had the chance to collaborate with the James Otis School in East Boston.
“It wasn’t a formal placement where we were doing speech interventions, but we were meeting with the kids and working with the teachers,” recounted Gonzalez. “I was really lucky to be in an ELA class where the kids were predominantly Spanish speaking.”
Gonzalez, who serves as the JEDI Fellow for the Communications Science and Disorders program, wanted to be able to gift the school with something they could use. An OT who worked at the school mentioned that the materials they had were all in English and not accessible for kids who spoke other languages.
Gonzalez is a bilingual individual so she knew she could translate the materials but they included a lot of visuals as well so there were concerns about copyright issues. Fortunately, she has a background in fine arts, so she was able to create new materials in Spanish, complete with hand-drawn pictures of the universally recognized story of Little Red Riding Hood.
The result was completely new materials with activities based on the curriculum of the Boston Public Schools that could be used with students who speak Spanish as well as those who don’t speak Spanish at all. While the components could be used by everyone, Gonzalez wanted to make sure her drawings reflected some of the children who may not be able to see themselves in well-known stories.
“I modified the actual representation of Little Red Riding Hood to look like the kids that I saw so it would be more representative of the students who would read the story,” explained Gonzalez.
The students in East Boston are not the only ones who benefitted by Gonzalez’s talents and generosity. Her clinical placement was at the Sarah Greenwood School in Dorchester, and she was able to use the materials there.
“During my placement, my students were learning English and for some of them, I did all the therapy in Spanish, so I was able to use the materials there,” said Gonzalez.
She has also added the elements to the resources available to clients at the MGH Institute’s Julie Atwood Speech, Language, and Literacy Center.
“The Center has a lot of resources, but they are actual physical materials, and you can’t give that to people,” said Gonzalez. “Now first-year students and even people who come after me have access to extra resources with an option to print it as many times as they want and give it to parents if they want it.
“It is pretty accessible, so there is a lot of flexibility in using it. It could be used with any speaker, not just for bilingual Spanish-English speakers.”
Anyone from the MGH Institute community who would like to use the materials can access them here.
Do you have a story the Office of Strategic Communications should know about? If so, let us know.