Photo credit: ThomasLife
For months I’ve been trying to figure out how I would go about teaching my daughter, Vanessa, how to read in Spanish. I know she’s been ready to learn for at least six months, but I guess I’ve been the one who wasn’t ready.
My original thought was that I’d teach her how to read in Spanish before she entered Kindergarten in the Fall. Once there, she’d just follow along with the rest of the kids in her class and “learn” how to read in English. I use quotation marks because the truth is you only learn to read once, regardless of the language.
I read and researched about the best way to teach her to read in Spanish, I bought workbooks online and when I went to Perú in February, and Ana even got me some more materials when she attended LéaLA Fería del Libro at the end of April. I was stressed out.
Vanessa’s preschool teachers told me she was ready, she recognizes almost every letter in the alphabet in both English and Spanish. She’s always asking me what it says here or what it says there. She copies words she sees around the house on white pieces of paper with her markers and crayons. She tries to spell out words using the magnetic letters on the fridge.
Recently, a good friend of mine suggested an idea she had used to teach her daughter how to read. She said to label as many items as possible around the house (she did it in both languages) so the words would become familiar to my daughter. I thought the idea was genius. And, yet, I’ve done absolutely nothing to implement this or the many other ideas I’ve been given.
Part of it is that I don’t feel capable enough (read: don’t have enough patience) to teach my daughter how to read. The other part is that I’ve been debating the benefits of Vanessa entering Kindergarten already knowing how to read.
When we went to her Kindergarten orientation earlier this week, the principal told us they’d start slow and would hopefully be reading by the end of their first year in elementary school. I think it was then when it hit me: there’s no need to rush this one. I’ve decided it’ll be better if she learns how to read alongside her classmates. Even if it is in English.
My new plan is to transfer the reading skills she’ll learn in school into Spanish and finally put to good use all the materials I’ve been accumulating the past few months. I think it’s going to work out great. I’m stressed out no more!
What is your experience? Have you taught your bilingual children to read in either language? Any tips?
I am definitely concerned about this topic. I tried to teach him using Coquito, but I think he is still too young. Actually I am trying to organize a native speaker school so that the kids can learn together. There is no way I can do it alone, but the moms in my playgroup are all interested. I don’t know if it will work out, but I think working with other moms, we’ll be able to develop the literacy skills of our kids. I do think that it helps that I am a teacher too.
Susan, this is a great idea. Yes, it helps that you´re a teacher, but I´m sure all the techniques you know will be so helpful for the parents here. If you do develop a system, we´d love to know more about it!!
Susan, I love the idea of working with other moms. I could totally see that working out and I’d love to implement something like this with our own group. I know at least a few moms would be totally into it. My only problem is that I have a full-time job outside the home which really puts a limit as to the time I have available to do this.
Your boys are lucky in that you’re a teacher because the truth is that I don’t even know where to start. After getting all these awesome comments, I’ve been left rethinking my strategy. Hmm….
Like you noted reading skills will transfer. Of course Spanish letter-sound correlation is much more consistent. There is quite a bit of research indicating that biliteracy is just as effective as transferring skills: no reason to wait for her to read in one language before starting to read in the other. She can read Spanish in one context (home or with a certain teacher) and English in another to help her identify which set of semantic/syntactic/and phonetic strategies to implement until she becomes proficient enough to recognize which language she’s decoding on her own. I’ll try to get titles and get back to you, but a couple names to research biliteracy include the work of Kate Kinsella and Pauline Gibbons. my primary advice is to just read with her. In addition to reading to her, let her sound out simple words or predict the next word and check the letters too see if they make the sounds of the anticipated word. It doesn’t have to be formal reading lessons, but regular opportunities. Also practice orally breaking upSpanish words into individual sounds and putting them back into meaningful words even when there isn’t text to practice the purpose of sounding out the letters that form words. I agree: no rush, enjoy, but also encourage: no reason to wait or approach it like a once for all task. Buena suerte
Melissa, breaking up words into syllables is how I learned how to read. So I know that’s a great exercise. I just need to remember to do it.
Luckily, I’ve been reading to Vanessa before she was born. She is enthralled by books and that’s why I’ve been thinking so hard about this whole teaching her how to read topic…
Thanks for the names you’ve including here. I guess I need to do some more research.
ps…love the photo. Is that an old photo?
Roxana, my daughter learned to read both at the same time.
She was taught the sounds of the Spanish alphabet at school and she was read to in Spanish both at school and at home.
She also learned to read English by learning the sounds of the letters and working with a reading teacher at her school. Again, we always read to her in both languages and we didn’t teach her to say the name of the letter but the sounds. Like Ah versas Ay.
She learned to read really well at 4.5. And I don’t feel we purposely taught her to read. Yes, we taught her letters and sounds and words, but it was just a natural process.
Don’t worry. It will be so natural and normal for her to switch back and forth.
Again, it really was easy and it came very, very naturally.
Todo va a estar bien!
We bilinguals are so smart!
Yes we are, Carrie!
I guess my biggest issue if feeling inadequate in the whole arena. I read to Vanessa more than I remember ever been read to and there’s no question she loves books.
I’ve gotten some great advice here, so it might be time to re-think this whole topic…
Everything that I have read and all the experts seem to agree that teaching your child to read first in his or her native language is best. The reasoning is that your child is more comfortable with that language and will learn to read more easily. Once your child has a good grounding, he or she will then transfer what she has learned and apply the rules/patterns to learning a second language. So learning to read in a second language is more likely to be successful after learning first in your mother tongue.
English is a really hard language to begin learning to read because there are SO MANY different letter combinations to create vowl sounds. In Spanish, vowels are consistent and sound the same every time, no matter where they are found in a word.
If Vanessa is just as strong in English as she is in Spanish, then it doesn’t really matter. If she is stronger in Spanish, I personally think that’s where you should start. But that doesn’t mean she can’t learn English first – it is just harder. My daughter is English dominant and she still gets frustrated.
But the other thing to consider is who will teach her to read. If you are not comfortable teaching her to read in Spanish, and you don’t have anyone else who can, then don’t. She will pick up on your anxiety and the whole process will be a disaster. You’d be better off to have a teacher teach her to read in English – while you provide comfort and encouragement.
Have you read any of the resources I shared when I did my Teaching Your Child to Read in Spanish week? There are some good programs out there. And Karen Rivera taught her daughter to read and gave a great description on how she did it – without any reading programs. Here’s the link for that week…
http://www.mommymaestra.com/search/label/Reading%20in%20Spanish
Good luck, Roxana!
I love how you explain that our kids pick up on our anxiety. I always say that my daughter won´t “let” me teach her anything because she’ll immediately tune me out and start acting silly. She might just be picking up on my own anxiety about not not knowing how to teach her.
Best to keep in mind that play should always come first and let her absorb what she’s ready to absorb. Thanks for the links! I’m starting to approach the same dilemma Roxana has!
Yes, Monica, you’re right. I’ve also read that teaching your child to read in her first language is best. That’s why this has become such a huge dilemma. I’d lie if I said Vanessa is a balanced bilingual at this point because Spanish is definitely her first language.
I think I had read the first in your series of post about reading in Spanish, one that had a post about a program called Estrellita, but I see you have a lot more than that and so I’ll be doing lots of reading in the next few weeks. Thanks for such resourceful posts!
I’m definitely not comfortable teaching her to read (regardless of the language) because I have NO IDEA how to go about doing it and unfortunately, my time with her is limited thanks to my full-time job. I did think at one point that I’d like to hire a Spanish tutor, but then I dropped the idea. It might be time to start looking into that again…
Great advice from Monica!
I read to my kids in English and Spanish when they were little so I like to think they absorbed some of that for later. They learned to read English first before starting school, (Dr. Seuss books and sight words were my methods.)
It was only last year that I got really serious about them learning to read/write in Spanish. I was so focused on the speaking/listening part of being bilingual, I kinda forgot about that. :}
Last summer I used the Adrian Dufflocq Galdames Silabario and sight word flash cards ( http://latinaish.com/2010/08/26/raising-bilingual-ninos-tip-3/ ) and they picked it up quick. School will be out soon and I’m going to be doing this with them daily again.
We have 3 languages at home; German, Italian and English.
My daughters are 12 and 5 and they both speak all 3 languages – but as far as reading, so far I have encouraged my oldest to read mostly in German. She just got into books for real, so I’ll wait a bit.
I know she CAN read in English and Italian if she wants to, but I think every child should have one mother tongue plus additional languages, and I need her mother tongue to be German because Switzerland is our landing base – no matter where else we move, we’ll always return here.
Also, German is much harder than English and so is Italian, so that’s another thing to consider. What’s the language that you want your daughter to speak best, be most fluent in? What the most difficult of the two? These things can help you figure out where to start.
Personally, I think that in the US children are pressured into learning things and doing activities a bit too much from a very early age – and when you compare the US literacy levels with European ones, it clearly doesn’t pay off. So I wouldn’t stress out – keep reading to her, maybe get some games where she has flash cards or something, so she can see how the names of objects are spelled. I don’t think that her asking what something says necessarily means it’s time to teach her to read – or not seriously, at least.
JMHO of course! Every child is different, and so is every mom. Whatever you decide, best of luck!
Thanks so much for your great honest opinion, Elisa. I think you pretty much got my drift. I do agree with you that some children are pressured into learning things a bit to early. I’m not sure if it’s a US thing or not, but I know it’s a fact because I’ve seen it with my own two eyes and I don’t really support it.
After reading everyone’s comments though, the one thing that has me worried again is the idea that children should learn to read in their mother tongue and that would be Spanish for my daughter. That means I’m the one responsible for that as she won’t be lucky enough to attend a dual language immersion school.
I’ve got a lot of thinking to do…
I congratulate you on your trilingual children! What an amazing gift!
I taught my son to read in Spanish first…And I think it was one of the best things I have ever done in terms of keeping Spanish going.
We now read chapter books in Spanish in the morning while eating breakfast since he is in Kindergarten and after school, and there is no other time in the day to do it. It is hard at times because children become very proficient in English really fast, even though I speak Spanish to him all the time and I read with him in Spanish as much as I can.
I think at this point what is keeping his Spanish vocabulary growing is the reading we do in the mornings…Thank goodness for that!
Hmmm… That’s a great point, Marcela! I like to think that my kids’ case is a bit different because Spanish is the only language spoken in my house at all times, even when my children are in the care of the nanny who is bilingual, but whose first language is Spanish.
My biggest issue is not that my daughter doesn’t learn how to read in Spanish, but whether she should learn how to read in English first, as in when she enters Kinder, and then just help her transfer those skills into Spanish.
I think that reading in Spanish is definitely one of the best ways to ensure your children’s vocabulary continues to expand!
I think the problem is that after getting older, kids tend to want to speak in English only as well as read in English only. I started with Spanish because I knew no matter what, he would have the support of the school. I saw a problem in the future because I could see our son not wanting to read in Spanish because of the English exposure.
I just think it may be a bit more difficult to get them to read in Spanish once they have started in English. I find now some resistance and I started with Spanish…
As per transferring the skills once you start in English I don’t see why not. In my case, our son actually read in English quite easily…Maybe he transferred the skills from learning to read in Spanish LOL I honestly don’t know.
In any case you know your daughter best…I feared our son’s lack of interest to read in Spanish once he knew how to read in English, and that is why I started Spanish first.
I’ve always read to my daughter a mix of English and Spanish books – so when she started learning to read in pre-K, we started learning to read in Spanish, letting her know what the differences were. Because there fewer rules surrounding vowels and consonants in Spanish, she found reading in Spanish a lot easier and it didn’t interfere with her learning to read in English. We continued to read stories in both languages before bed time, and now that she will be entering Kindergarten in the Fall and reads very well, I might start encouraging her to try her hand at writing in Spanish too
Thanks for your comment, Jennifer. That’s great! I am starting to wonder, though, if I’m the only mom out there who doesn’t really know how to go about teaching her daughter how to read? I’m starting to feel kind of lonely… and silly. Maybe I’m making it more difficult that it seems, but I truly don’t know how to get started…
Roxana – I know what you mean, there are a lot of resources at hand at advice from different people – yet sometimes the hardest part is just getting started! With my son, who is now 7, it was very fluid. At 4, he was very motivated to read, period, so he learned both alphabets very quickly from books we read and started stringing words together right away. I can personally say that once they are in school the English takes over and I have to emphasize the Spanish to offset the English he reads and speaks all day. So, even if the books he chooses to read at night are in English, I choose stories in Spanish, and half the time he will jump in and read as well or at least follow along in the story with me. With my daughter, who is 4, the process is very different. She is in a Montessori school that emphasizes phonics so that is what I am doing at home as well, sort of. We work in Spanish and they work with her in English and while she has made progress, it has been a much slower and more challenging process than with my son. With my daughter, I try to do different creative things I have read about (but not the labelling) such as making the letters with modeling clay and pipe cleaners, playing games with letters, etc. to have it be more fun for her. I’m certain that through trial and error you’ll find a way that works for you and your daughter.
I like Monica’s advice a lot too.
Just when you start think maybe they just aren’t grasping this concept, it pops out of their mouths some moment when you weren’t even asking. Um, and then sometimes, it seems to sort of disappear again… that’s all part of it.
My son actually talks a lot more in Spanish than he does in English, but he knows his letters in English and is starting to sight-recognize words in English, and that’s because a.) he watches shows like Super Why in English and b.) I’m the designated person who speaks English with him and I’m the only one who’s regularly playing games with him to learn his letters, sounds, and words. It’s a blessing that you are a native Spanish speaker. Spanish phonetics are way more logical and that’s definitely an easier path for first learning to read, hands down. If I were more comfortable in Spanish that would have been the way I went. Just look for ways to make it a game and fun for both of you. In the end all you can do is reading READINESS and the reading itself sort of just happens. Remember kids are learning things in their brain at a much higher level than what they are able to verbalize, even a very verbal kid
My son just turned 5 and is learning to read right now; it’s very exciting! Pertinent background: my husband and I are both native English speakers, but I am fluent in Spanish as well, and have only spoken Spanish with my son and daughter (2) since they were born. They also have Spanish-speaking friends through church. We’ve been reading books in Spanish since my son was born, and our house is full of books in both Spanish and English. I am a certified teacher, in history and Spanish, but chose to stay home full time after my son turned 1; he was cared for by a Latina friend that first year while I taught. We’ll be homeschooling bilingually; we actually started in January “officially”.
Learning to read has been very painless for us. Mostly, we just read! About everything. I read to him only in Spanish, and my husband reads with him for about 20 minutes each night in English. The only “formal” training we’ve done is using the Larousse “Yo quiero saber” preschool workbooks Leer, A B and C, and I purchased the activity workbook that goes with the “De canciones a cuentos” curriculum (we did not use any other elements of the program, just due to expense). The activity book is just a collection of mini books my son cuts out, fills in a word or syllable on each page, and then is able to read on his own.
For Spanish reading, we concentrate on learning syllables rather than letter sounds, and this books works through syllables.
He has started reading in English, using his Spanish reading strategies. Given the lack of correspondence between some English letter combinations and their separate sounds, I have to help more with pronounciation than I do in Spanish, but he’s doing well.
I wanted him to read when he was ready, and he has done so, mostly on his own. I encourage it, but don’t push if he doesn’t want to read, or if he gets frustrated. I often ask him to read the heading of a chapter in a book, before continuing to read aloud.
I hope this helps! It’s a different process for each child, and some are ready earlier than others. I don’t think that’s a problem at all. We’ll see how the process differs when my daughter learns!
I’m jumping in quite late, so you may not be in need of anymore advice. I just wanted to add my two cents! I taught second grade for many years, and in my humble opinion, you are stressing yourself out for no reason!! The fact that you read with your daughter and she has an immense love of books is wonderful, and is already a jump start for her as she reaches kindergarten. Kids enter school at SO many different levels. Unfortunately, for some it is their first real experience with books. I have no doubt she will pick up reading in English quite easily once she is being taught in a formal setting on a daily basis. Once she knows how to read in English, she will have no problem switching to Spanish, as it is much, much easier.
I’m now a stay at home mom and I look at learning how to read as just having fun with him. We read the same easy books over and over again and we point to the words together. We practice letter sound combinations in Spanish. I started with ma, me, mi, mo, mu. Then we changed the the consonants (ba, be, bi, bo, bu etc…) We also started working with two syllables, mama, papa, common words that he heard a lot. I use magnetic letters on the fridge or a cookie sheet. I also have letters on paper that we move around to make new words. I staple paper together to make a book and he practices “writing” and making up stories. I’ve also labelled things around my house, but I’m not sure how much he’s picking up on that quite yet. I only do the activities every once in a while though, because I don’t want him to think of it as anything but play at this point.
I only do all of this because I’m at home all day, and I have to get my teaching fix in somehow! You are doing an amazing job just by exposing her to literature every day.
*any more… darn pregnancy brain.
I love reading everyone’s replies. I myself am a bilingual teacher. Although I am not a native Spanish speaker I am very proficient. My husband (who is native) and I have been raising our daughter in a bilingual home since her birth. I find that she enjoys reading and listening to books in either language. I have been reading a book about called “Raising Confident readers”. Although it is not a book based on biliteracy I try to apply many of the ideas in either English and my husband in Spanish. I know that making our home a print rich environment our daughter will learn to read. For now, I really try to get my husband to buy in to reading with her in Spanish at least 2 -3 times per week, and I will read to her in English. I want her to hear reading in both languages. I even purchase some books on tape well CD or audio books in Spanish, so that we can listen together and she enjoys that as well.
She is in a bilingual preschool and right now 90% of her school day is in spanish,but I have noticed she recognizes letters and vowel sounds in both languages. I believe any exposure to literacy (drawing, writing, and reading) will lead our children to be confident readers.
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