Asunto Everardo Zapata Santillana (born 1926) is a

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

vian

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

and

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

of Coquito, a best-selling book, used to teach Spanish-speaking

child A child () is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The term may also refer to an unborn human being. In English-speaking ...

ren how to read and

write Writing is the act of creating a persistent representation of language. A writing system includes a particular set of symbols called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which they encode a particular spoken language. Every written language ...

Early life

Zapata was born in Tambo Valley, Province of Islay in The Department Of

Arequipa Arequipa (; Aymara language, Aymara and ), also known by its nicknames of ''Ciudad Blanca'' (Spanish for "White City") and ''León del Sur'' (Spanish for "South's Lion"), is a city in Peru and the capital of the eponymous Arequipa (province), ...

in 1926. His mother died when he was young, and grew up alone with a priest taking care of him. Very early on, he felt the need to study and pursue a career in teaching. He took his professional training in the Escuela Normal de Varones “San Juan Bautista de La Salle”, Arequipa, where he graduated as an elementary school teacher. He was sent to a small town called Punta de Bombón, Arequipa.

Coquito

In Punta de Bombón he founded a First Grade School in 1952 that now bears his name. After 7 years of research, he developed Coquito - a method to teach children to read, write and think. He was about to name his book "sunset", or "evening", but he dreamed about a very funny and mischievous boy named "Coquito", and decided that that was the correct name for his book. Coquito was first published and sold in the city of Arequipa in 1955. The print runs remained small until the book started to be printed in Lima, in 1957, by Peruvian publisher Iberia S.A. The number of copies printed and sold grew steadily, and soon Coquito was being sold throughout Peru and in Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador. To date, over 35 million children in 12 countries –in

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, the

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, and

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– have learned how to read by using the Coquito method. Zapata is also the author of more than 60 published teaching materials, for preschool and first-grade children, all distributed under the corporate brand name Ediciones Coquito. Zapata says he is still looking for better ways to help children and teachers make the learning process easier.

Family

He has five children (four boys and one girl) and ten grandchildren. His youngest grandchild, a three-year-old girl, is currently learning how to read with "Coquito".

Honors

The Peruvian Department of Education has honored Zapata with the Palmas Magisteriales, its highest teaching award, with the topmost degree of "Amauta". Also, the Mayor of Arequipa awarded him the City’s Cultural Gold Medal, and he has been made Honorary Professor by The University of Santa Maria, a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

university in Arequipa. He has also received a Gold Medal from the Arequipa Regional Government.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zapata-Santillana, Everardo 1926 births Peruvian non-fiction writers Peruvian male non-fiction writers Living people