Using storytelling to bring literacy to life

For many young readers, the challenge is not simply learning how to decode words on a page. It is learning how to see themselves in what they read, how to connect literacy to the language of home and community, and how to experience reading as something alive rather than something imposed.

That challenge sits at the heart of Rosalía Pacheco's work.

A Lecturer III in the Department of Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy at The University of New Mexico College of Education & Human Sciences (COEHS), Pacheco has spent more than two decades developing an approach to literacy instruction that blends storytelling, performance, cultural knowledge and the foundational skills of reading. Her work asks a powerful question: What happens when literacy instruction does not leave culture at the classroom door?

Last fall, Pacheco brought that question to life at the 4th Annual Building Better Readers Literacy Day in Las Vegas, N.M. Designed for students in grades three through five, the event gave children access to authors, literature and different forms of learning, with an emphasis on culturally sustaining literacy experiences. Pacheco's storytelling presentation closed the day.

Her featured story was La Llorona, adapted for young learners not as a scare tale, but as a literacy lesson rooted in folklore, place and participation. Drawing on a tradition she grew up with in northern New Mexico, Pacheco used the story to teach reading fluency, reading comprehension and grade-level concepts such as character and setting. Students did not remain seated as passive listeners. They stood, moved, portrayed characters and helped build the story as it unfolded.

That interactive quality is central to her work. Pacheco's approach is not traditional storytelling, and it is not simply theater. It is a guided literacy practice in which storytelling becomes reader's theater, read-aloud, formative assessment and hands-on instruction all at once. As students participate, they identify parts of the story, learn vocabulary, describe character traits and practice comprehension in real time.

The method has deep roots. Pacheco began this work in 2003 after creating a one-person performance for the New Mexico Humanities Council's Chautauqua Scholar Program. Around the same time, she performed twice at the Smithsonian's Discovery Theater, bringing New Mexico traditions and folklore to school audiences in Washington, D.C. Her father, Ray John de Aragon, has written extensively about New Mexico culture and history, and her mother wrote a play based on La Llorona, making storytelling part of both her scholarly and personal inheritance.

"Dr. Pacheco's work reminds us that literacy is not only about mastering a skill set. It is also about helping children recognize themselves, their languages and their communities in the learning process. This is the kind of work that helps keep New Mexico moving, growing and learning, while preparing educators who can teach with both rigor and humanity."

- Jay Parkes, senior associate dean for Student Success, UNM COEHS

Over time, her work evolved. What began as a performance centered on the storyteller gradually transformed into a more collaborative experience after Pacheco noticed children instinctively stepping into the story themselves. She began inviting them to act, respond and even help shape dramatic elements such as sound and tension. In doing so, she created a model that teaches literary structure not through abstraction, but through embodied experience.

For Pacheco, that matters especially in New Mexico. She intentionally weaves Spanish words, regional sayings and community-based ways of knowing into her teaching. In northern New Mexico, she said, students responded with excitement when they heard language familiar from their parents and grandparents. That recognition can help students feel that their identities belong in the learning process rather than standing outside it.

Her approach also speaks to a broader challenge in literacy education. As schools work to improve reading outcomes, Pacheco believes culturally sustaining practices should not be treated as extras or enrichment. Instead, they can strengthen literacy instruction by making it more relevant, more participatory and more responsive to multilingual communities. She describes storytelling as a way to connect foundational reading skills to instruction that is community-centered rather than English-centered alone.

At UNM, she is carrying that work directly into teacher preparation. Pacheco integrates storytelling into multiple courses, especially Reading and Diversity in Education, and shares videos, modules and presentation materials with part-time faculty so they can incorporate these strategies in ways that fit their classrooms. She hopes to expand that work further through professional development, research and classroom resources for educators.

She has already begun contributing to the field beyond UNM. Pacheco recently published a peer-reviewed article that includes her storytelling work, presented on "navigating the science of reading through storytelling" at the Honolulu International Conference in Education, and is continuing to develop future workshops and teaching materials.

Still, she knows the barriers are real. Teachers face time constraints, curriculum pressures and growing demands for assessment and data collection. Those realities can make culturally sustaining practices harder to implement, even when educators see their value. Pacheco's hope is that schools will continue creating room for literacy instruction that honors bilingualism, multilingualism and the funds of knowledge students bring with them.

That hope is also personal. Pacheco spoke about the long history of language loss and assimilation that many New Mexico families have endured, including in her own family, where earlier generations were punished for speaking Spanish in school. That history, she said, remains part of why this work matters so deeply now.

At Building Better Readers, the impact was immediate. Students left with books of their own. One child rushed up afterward with a drawing she had made during the presentation. Before the session ended, Pacheco encouraged the students to write their own stories, sending them back to their classrooms with more than an afternoon of entertainment. She sent them back with a sense that stories are something they can enter, understand and create for themselves.

"Dr. Pacheco's work reminds us that literacy is not only about mastering a skill set. It is also about helping children recognize themselves, their languages and their communities in the learning process," said Jay Parkes, senior associate dean for Student Success at the UNM College of Education & Human Sciences. "This is the kind of work that helps keep New Mexico moving, growing and learning, while preparing educators who can teach with both rigor and humanity."

At UNM, Rosalía Pacheco is showing future teachers that literacy instruction can do more than meet a benchmark. It can invite children into reading through culture, memory, movement and voice, and in doing so, help them discover that learning belongs to them, too.