Roxana is a bilingual and bicultural mamá to Vanessa, an inquisitive first grader, and her always on-the-go little brother, Santiago – both of whom are growing up between two worlds and in two languages. A long-time journalist, Roxana is in charge of all editorial content on SpanglishBaby.
http://spanglishbaby.com
Twitter: @roxanaSB
Posted by: Roxana A. Soto | 13 Comments
I love having a child who’s a perfect example of how well the Minority Language at Home method (or mL@H) really works. If you’ve been following SpanglishBaby for a while, you know that, at this point, my daughter Vanessa, who’s almost 6-years-old, is fully bilingual and biliterate. Although the days of me worrying that Vanessa wouldn’t get enough exposure to English because we’ve only spoken to her in Spanish since the day she was born are long gone, the funny thingRead More ...
Posted by: Roxana A. Soto | 3 Comments
It feels like a really long time since we’ve done this, but since bilingualism is becoming more and more prevalent in the news, we’ve decided to bring it back. The idea is to gather all the links related to bilingualism, bilingual education, Latino culture and anything related to raising bilingual and bicultural kids in one post every week so you don’t have to go searching for them yourselves. All you have to do is come to SpanglishBaby at the endRead More ...
Posted by: Roxana A. Soto | 37 Comments
Vanessa is such a curious child and she’s definitely much more interested in all topics related to science than I was at her age — or ever, really. I’m not sure where the fascination comes from, but I’m making sure to nature it (although I know very little about the subject) because I would never want to influence her with my own likes and dislikes. Luckily, her father LOVES science too, so they get to spend a lot of timeRead More ...
Posted by: Roxana A. Soto | 9 Comments
I feel like such a wimp, but I’ve been crying like a baby the last few days. They’re mostly tears of happiness, but they’re tinged with a bit of sadness too, for time come and gone. Vanessa graduated from kindergarten yesterday and I’m so happy to report that it’s been an incredible first year of school for her — and for me. For starters, all my worries about my daughter’s English abilities (since we only speak to her in Spanish)Read More ...
Posted by: Roxana A. Soto | 12 Comments
Vanessa has always had a hard time pronouncing the letter R. Lately, though, she’s become keenly aware that she can’t roll her Rs. Out of the blue, she’ll repeat words like perro and carro and rápido and ask me if she’s saying them right. Unfortunately, she’s not. But I’m not freaking out just yet because I’ve read this is normal since Spanish speaking children typically don’t learn to roll their R’s until they’re between 5 and 7 years old. ThisRead More ...
Posted by: Roxana A. Soto | 46 Comments
I recently found out about a bilingual publishing company I’d never heard about when I was sent their new children’s books for 2012 and I’m happy to report that I really like what Lectura Books is doing. Founded back in 2001, Lectura Books’ main goal is parent involvement when it comes to reading. To that end, its most well-known program,The Latino Family Literacy Project, aims to establish a daily reading routine through age-appropriate books that help children (and their parents)Read More ...