Daily Blog

When my twins were 18 months old, and I was waiting for them to turn babble into words, I still wondered: would they say agua or water? Más or more? Thinking back, it was a preposterous thought. My husband Adrian and I had spoken only Spanish to them since they were three months old. Having English-speaking toddlers was a linguistic impossiblity. Yet I, an Irish-American who learned Spanish as a second language, doubted whether I could really pull this wholeRead More ...

We all have such clear ideas about how we’ll raise our children, even before they’re born. Breast vs. bottle. Co-sleeping vs. crying it out. Homemade baby food. Screen time. And though in some areas I was able to stick to my guns, I was humbled by the fact that many things really didn’t work out the way I’d planned at all. The same was true when it came to raising my children with two languages. I knew we’d probably useRead More ...

While I don’t really have to worry about Vanessa not reading during the summer — she’s a bookworm, just like her mom — I must say I do love the idea behind iVillage PBS KIDS Summer Reading Community Challenge, which starts tomorrow, is free and lasts six weeks. The way it works is pretty simple. Basically you just sign up and you’ll start getting daily emails with literacy-building tips and activities from experts at PBS KIDS and Scholastic, two ofRead More ...

It’s obvious that summer is right around the corner because it was a bit of a slow week in terms of news in the world of bilingualism. What we did find, though, is definitely worth reading: Educators once opposed raising bilingual children. Experts now say it’s beneficial from the Washington Post — The majority of the info in this article is not totally new, but I like that it’s all together in one place and written in a way that isRead More ...

I really admire my mother-in-law for raising two bilingual children. Her task was especially challenging since she did so in an era when it was not popular to use a language other than English. In fact, she was actually told to stop speaking to her sons in German, her native language. Teachers, and even doctors, said that it would confuse them in school, but she knew better and continued to speak to her sons in German. Her persistence is whyRead More ...

BabyCenter en Español has released the results of yet another survey. This particular survey was about fathers and how they interact with their children. Here is the data that caught my eye: Actividades preferidas que los papás disfrutan hacer con sus niños: • Jugar con él: 60% • Dormir con él: 18% • Bañarlo: 13% • Leerle un cuento: 1% • Otra cosa: 9% Source: BabyCenter en Español Do you see that? Favorite activities for fathers to do with theirRead More ...

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 ...

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 ...