“I would like to teach my kids to read in Spanish. Any suggestions on materials to use? Thanks.”

Hi Leticia! I love your name! Leticia is one of my favorite cities in Colombia – it’s in the Amazon region and it’s a very beautiful place!

With regard to your question, there are tons of great sites online that can help kids read in Spanish. Here is a collection of some of my favorites. You can also check out my Delicious bookmarks (http://www.delicious.com/miscositas) and my website for updated links that seem to pop up every day! ¡Buena suerte!

America Reads Spanish: this is a great place to start looking for reading materials. On this site you can download a book called: Essential Guide to Spanish Reading for Children and Young Adults, which is an annotated bibliographic list of great reading in Spanish sorted by age level and recommended by librarians and educators from around the country!  http://www.americareadsspanish.org/

World Digital Library: this site makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world; materials are available in Spanish and several other languages.  http://www.wdl.org/en/#

International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL): A digital library of outstanding children’s books from all over the world; read full texts with accompanying images; search archive by country to find books in Spanish – and many other languages.  http://en.childrenslibrary.org/

StoryPlace: A digital online library for kids with stories, games and activities; kids can read along with the story as the audio portion plays. http://www.storyplace.org/sp/

BookBox: A neat site with interesting stories in different languages, with subtitles or without them; you can access a sample of the story for free, but the full story is $2.99 to download and keep; free games and other materials as well; materials available in English, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Hindi and 21 other languages. http://www.bookbox.com/

MisCositas: My site! I have over 20 “virtual picturebooks” that students can read, with challenging vocabulary words linked to a pop-up picture dictionary; after reading the “book,” kids can view the accompanying video on our YouTube channel. http://www.miscositas.com

Lori Langer de Ramirez – Bilingual educator who began her career as a teacher of Spanish, French and ESL. She holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics and a Doctorate in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is currently the Chairperson of the ESL and World Language Department for Herricks Public Schools, New York. Lori is the author of Take Action: Lesson Plans for the Multicultural Classroom and Voices of Diversity: Stories, Activities and Resources for the Multicultural Classroom, as well as several Spanish-language books and texts (Cuéntame – Folklore y Fábulas and Mi abuela ya no está). Her interactive website (miscositas.com) offers teachers over 40 virtual picture books and other curricular materials for teaching Chinese, English, French, Indonesian, Italian, Spanish and Thai. Her areas of research and curriculum development are multicultural and diversity education, folktales in the language classroom and technology in language teaching. You can read her answers here.

Today´s question was sent by Tricia, who is looking for advice on how to create a perceived need for Spanish in her family.  For more tips check out this article Roxana recently wrote on the topic.

“Do the experts have any advice on creating a perceived need for Spanish in families that aren´t from any sort of Spanish-speaking cultural background? We´re located in a rural area with almost no Spanish speakers, making it even more difficult. We are making it a point to travel to Spanish-speaking countries, but I´m still kind of constantly scrambling to find ways to give a 4, 9, and11 year old any sense of needing to speak Spanish (other than with me). I’d definitely appreciate any suggestions!”

Dear Tricia,

What a great question – and a timely one for me. I just returned from giving workshops at a professional conference in Europe. I was astounded (and impressed) by how many people speak English – and not just a little English, but a LOT! People in Europe are obviously convinced about the importance of learning more than one language! I wonder why it is such a struggle in the United States to convince folks of this need?

With regard to your children, I would suggest finding them a keypal (computer keyboard penpals) who speaks the minority language with whom to communicate. You can try any one of a number of services that provide worldwide connections for young people – Student Letter Exchange is one example of this kind of service. By connecting your kids with a native speaker of Spanish, you will be providing them with an important link not just to language practice, but to cultural and social connections.

You might also get them interested in Spanish-language media like films and music. If your kids are intrigued by movies, TV and music coming from the Spanish-speaking world, they will find themselves more engaged on a personal level with the language and see more of a need to speak and understand it. Try these sites:

• La música en español

• Yahoo música en español

• TvGratis.tv

• Películas gratis en español

Overall, I applaud you for trying to make Spanish more relevant for your kids. If they feel connected to people who speak the language, they will be motivated and driven to learn it and to speak it better and better each day. ¡Buena suerte!

-Lori

Lori Langer de Ramirez, Ed.D

Lori Langer de Ramirez – Bilingual educator who began her career as a teacher of Spanish, French and ESL. She holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics and a Doctorate in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is currently the Chairperson of the ESL and World Language Department for Herricks Public Schools, New York. Lori is the author of Take Action: Lesson Plans for the Multicultural Classroom and Voices of Diversity: Stories, Activities and Resources for the Multicultural Classroom, as well as several Spanish-language books and texts (Cuéntame – Folklore y Fábulas and Mi abuela ya no está). Her interactive website (miscositas.com) offers teachers over 40 virtual picture books and other curricular materials for teaching Chinese, English, French, Indonesian, Italian, Spanish and Thai. Her areas of research and curriculum development are multicultural and diversity education, folktales in the language classroom and technology in language teaching. You can read her answers here.

Photo by -bast-

We’re starting off the week on a high note with the addition of a new bilingual expert to answer the questions you send to our weekly series: Ask an Expert.

Lori Langer de Ramirez began her career as a teacher of Spanish, French and ESL. She holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics and a Doctorate in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is currently the Chairperson of the ESL and World Language Department for Herricks Public Schools, New York.

Lori Langer de Ramirez, Ed.D

Lori is the author of Take Action: Lesson Plans for the Multicultural Classroom and Voices of Diversity: Stories, Activities and Resources for the Multicultural Classroom, as well as several Spanish-language books and texts (Cuéntame – Folklore y Fábulas and Mi abuela ya no está).  Her interactive website (miscositas.com) offers teachers over 40 virtual picture books and other curricular materials for teaching Chinese, English, French, Indonesian, Italian, Spanish and Thai.

She is the recipient of the Nelson Brooks Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Culture, several National Endowment for the Humanities grants for study in Mexico, Colombia and Senegal, and a Fulbright Award to India and Nepal. Her areas of research and curriculum development are multicultural and diversity education, folktales in the language classroom and technology in language teaching.

And now, she’s also part of the SpanglishBaby team of amazing experts. How lucky are we?

Which Language Should We Use for Learning Activities?

Today’s question was sent by a fellow mamá bloguera, Carla, who blogs at MamaHeartsBaby.

“My daughter is 21 months and we’re lucky enough to not need childcare. We love our time with her and have decided not to rush her into any kind of academic setting. We’re looking at starting to enhance the amount of toddler learning activities we do with her but aren’t quite sure how to incorporate our bilingual efforts into the mix.

Up until now, I’ve spoken just Spanish and DH does his best to use just Spanish but does use English once in a blue moon. Our daughter understands and responds in both languages, though seems to understand more in Spanish.

As we look at activities (some Montessori based and others just learning games), we wonder if we should each use one language when doing these activities. For instance, I would do the activity in Spanish one day and another day my husband in English.

Does anyone know if this would work? I’ve considered just doing it in Spanish since DH really wants to expand his own Spanish skills but I don’t want to deprive of her of expanding her English language skills.”

Hi Carla!

Bravo for all your efforts in raising your baby in a bilingual household! I have some personal experience in this area, and also some research to share with you on this topic.

First the research: If you are interested in raising a balanced bilingual (a person who is equally comfortable in two languages), it is best for parents to split the language workload. For example, in your case – one parent should speak consistently to the child in English, and the other in Spanish. It is recommended that the native speaker take the language in which s/he is more comfortable. Then you can decide which will be the common language (i.e., when mom and dad speak to each other, will it be in Spanish or in English?)

In my own home, I am a native speaker of English (although also fluent in Spanish) and my husband is a native speaker of Spanish (although also fluent in English). I speak with our son, Nikolas, in English and my husband uses predominantly Spanish. We also have a sitter who speaks only in Spanish to our son. Our common language is Spanglish! So far, Niko is dominant in English, but understands, reads, and writes Spanish very well.

There are some factors that have lead to this sort of unbalanced bilingualism in my son:

• Most of the TV, movies, books in our home are in English. While we have a nice collection of Spanish language materials, Niko gravitates towards English.

• Niko is highly computer literate and LOVES English-language websites like NickJr, BrainPop, and others. Since I am a self-proclaimed “computer geek,” and I am the English speaker, most of our time online is in English.

• My husband is a very fluent speaker of English. He often slips into English when speaking with Niko. This is a very common problem and it takes a huge effort on the part of a parent to stick to the target language when the child is responding in another.

My advice for you, Carla, is to divvy up the languages (remember, it’s best for native/heritage speakers to choose their 1st language) and then make a commitment to that language from now on with your daughter. Try to find appropriate websites, reading materials, cultural events, and television shows in both languages to support equal acquisition of both. But above all, have fun with the languages and encourage your daughter in whatever words pop out of her mouth – whether they be English, Spanish, or Spanglish!

¡Buena suerte!

Do you have a question for our experts? Remember no question is too big or too simple. So, to send us your question, please click here or leave a comment below. Thank you!