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?

Ducks, pigs, cows and chickens that are too hilarious and mischievous for their own good, are the main characters in Doreen Cronin’s beloved children’s stories. Scholastic Storybook Treasures, the DVD that brings books to life, has just released a new DVD titled Giggle, Giggle, Quack…and more stories by Doreen Cronin, featuring five of Cronin’s most popular stories. As soon as I found out that they included a Spanish version of both “Giggle, Giggle, Quack” and “Duck for President” on the DVD I knew we wanted to feature this find.

Ideal for children ages 3 to 8 that are in their first stages of reading, the stories all come with an enhanced read-along function where the words that are being read are highlighted so your child can easily follow them.  That’s if he’s not rolling on the floor laughing with the crazy antics of all these silly farm animals.  A duck that wants to be president because he doesn’t like the working conditions in the farm;  singing cows that want to win the grand prize in a talent show; hens that want pizza with anchovies for dinner are just some of the witty stories, illustrated by lively animations, that will make TV-time feel as cozy as story time.

You can also find the Spanish-version of the book, Jaja, Jiji, Cuac and make it an interactive activity where you read the book together and then you hear it being read and come to life.  Perfect for bilingual homeschooling or language immersion at home since the stories support reading comprehension, vocabulary and problem solving…in such a fun way!

Find it at stores and online at newkideo.com.  Of course, you can always get it at La Tiendita and you’ll be supporting SpanglishBaby.

The Giveaway

This giveaway is now closed.  Congratulations to the winner:  Sherri!

We’re giving away one copy of the Giggle, Giggle, Quack DVD to a lucky winner.  All you have to do is leave us a comment telling us what your favorite farm animal is.

That’s all you have to do to enter this giveaway. If you want to up your chances at winning, then this is how you can get additional entries (only after you´ve completed the step above):

**Please leave a separate comment for each so we can count them and avoid mistakes.

1. Subscribe to our feed via email or RSS and leave us an extra comment letting us know you did so or that you’re already a subscriber.

2. Follow us on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway including a link to the post.

3. Blog about this giveaway making sure to include our link, and you’ll get TWO additional entries.

This giveaway ends Sunday, April 11 at midnight EST and you must have a valid US address to enter.

Disclosure: A sample product was provided for review purposes; all opinions are 100% ours. Check out our full Disclosure + Privacy Policy.
If  you click on a link above and it takes you to La Tiendita and you purchase a product, we will hear pennies fall in el cochinito.

For the part that nobody likes, but we’ve gotta have, check out the Giveaway Rules.

“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.

Photo by sergis blog

While I was registering to get the H1N1 vaccine this weekend at the local high school, the lady who was taking in the forms very politely asked if I’d rather get the information in Spanish. (I guess she’d overheard us while we were making the line.) I, also very politely, answered that it didn’t matter because I was bilingual. I don’t know if, at first, she didn’t understand me because she asked the question again. So, I repeated that either language was fine since I was bilingual. Then she smiled and said: “You’re so lucky! I wish I were bilingual,” and proceeded to give me the flyer in English.

So that got me thinking… What does it actually mean to be bilingual? As with many other subjective questions, let’s begin by establishing that there’s no right or wrong definition. I mean, there’s the definition given by the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary: “using or able to use two languages especially with equal fluency.” But does “using” mean speaking, writing and reading? A lot of people consider themselves bilingual and they only know how to speak the language, but can’t write or read it properly.

For me, it has always come down to this: As a journalist, could I apply for a job that requires me to do research, interviews and then write a story in English and Spanish? In other words, can I write, read, understand and speak both languages well enough to succeed in the job described above? The answer is yes, not only because I believe I can do it, but because that’s basically what I’ve done since I became a journalist almost 20 years ago.

As a Latina writer who is very proud of her heritage – and I think I’ve mentioned this before – nothing would be more distressing to me than to raise children who are only able to speak my mother tongue, but can’t write it or read it. Especially the way things continue to go in this country. According to this article, bilingual Hispanics make almost 3% more money than their monolingual counterparts. Can you just imagine what the percentage will be when our children enter the workforce in 15 to 20 years?

But it’s more than that. For me, it’s a very personal thing. I can’t imagine my daughter – who I’m training to be a bookworm like her mami - reading Mario Vargas Llosa in English (kudos to those who have, but I’d be lying if I said it was the same) or my son unable to write a Christmas card to his monolingual bisabuela in Spanish.

For some reason, I tend to take for granted that, even though I was raised mostly in South America (Perú, México and Argentina), English was always a part of my life, one way or the other. Not only did I attend a bilingual British school in Perú for several years before we moved to the States, but I also lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, for an entire year when I was 10. In other words, I was exposed to English in a school setting from the time I was very little.

That is why when we moved to Miami after my fourteenth birthday, although it was definitely a culture shock for me, at least I didn’t have the added pressure of not knowing the language and having to enroll in ESL courses. As for my Spanish? My foundations were pretty strong to begin with, so I just cemented them by reading and writing as much as I could. I also used my Dad as a walking dictionary. 

Today, I feel as comfortable in English as I do in Spanish. Sometimes, depending on my mood, I prefer to read books in English. Other times, I’ll only read books in Spanish for a while. But mostly, I read other stuff in both. Magazines, newspapers, blogs. Same thing when it comes to writing. My life is definitely richer because of it.

Ojalá un día mis hijos puedan decir lo mismo.

I hope my kids can say the same one day.

So, what is your definition of bilingual? What kind of bilinguals are you raising your children to be? What kind of bilingual are you?

We’re doing something a little bit different for this month’s installment of ReadMe. Instead of showcasing a book’s author, we’d actually like to introduce you to a brand new bilingual publishing house which we support 100%. First because we truly believe in what the publishers are doing and second because their products are different and, simply put, cool and innovative!

It’s called Bilingual Readers – we’ve linked to their blog’s articles in the past, so you might already know about them – and their first two bilingual books just came off the presses. (We’ll be talking about them over at SpanglishBabyFinds soon.) The third one, Marina and the Little Green Boy – which I’ll be reviewing today – is not even available until November.

Today’s ReadMe bilingual book is the story of a little girl, Marina, and an unlikely friend, a little green Martian who suddenly appears in her attic. Together they explore Marina’s house and her family life with the little girl as the teacher and the little green boy as a pupil. The imaginative story and its quirky illustrations are alluring because in the process of learning about his new world, the little Martian does a series of crazy and funny things that would have any child laughing.

The best part is that the pages are sprinkled with words describing certain illustration (such as: roof/tejado and plug/enchufe) which can help children learn basic vocabulary in both English and Spanish. There is, however, something else to this story.

“On one level, Marina y el niño verde is a children’s comedy about two friends from very different worlds,” explained Deanna Lyles, Bilingual Readers founder. “On a deeper level, the author, Antonio Vicente, also did a great job of including a more subtle message to teach children values such as integration, respect and tolerance.”

In other words, it’s not just a funny story about a little Martian. The book can also be use to help children understand the values mentioned above – so important in today’s multicultural societies  – in a simple manner.

Marina and the little green boy is the first in a series by author Miguel Ordóñez and illustrator Antonio Vicente who “put their together and created this fabulous story line with adorable and incredibly funny characters” which the publishers absolutely love. I can’t wait to see what the rest are going to be like. (Can you tell I L-O-V-E books?)

“One of our first ideas was to publish a series about “first experiences” for small children. Each book in the series would deal with a new experience that children all over the world could relate to. Our idea was to create a character or series of characters that would hold a child’s attention and give continuity to the first story,” said Lyles. “The truth is that Marina y el niño verde was just begging to be a series because one book just isn’t enough!”

Bilingual Readers, a small independent publishing company based in Madrid, Spain, is the creation of Lyles and her husband  Íñigo Gil.

“Íñigo and I began doing extensive research on bilingual language acquisition, early children’s literacy skills and multilingual parenting techniques in order to be as prepared as possible for raising our own bilingual children someday,” according to Lyles. “We were both fascinated by the important role reading plays in monolingual language development and could only conclude that reading was even more important for reinforcing language skills in bilingual children.”

Deanna Lyles

It didn’t hurt that both Lyles and Gil have worked in publishing for years.

“We plan to publish at least 12 titles during our first year, and gradually build a collection of bilingual books for modern parents who are interested in exposing their children to languages through reading at an early age,” Lyles said.

Íñigo Gil

Check out the rest of the interview I conducted via email with Lyles to find out more about Bilingual Readers’ philosophy and you’ll quickly see why we are fans:

SB – Why publish bilingual books?

“While reading monolingual books out loud to children is certainly beneficial, bilingual books are especially beneficial for bilingual families. For example, if one parent reads a book to a child in English and the other parent reads the same book in Spanish, the child will automatically begin to associate both languages with the stories and objects on the pages of the book.”

SB – How would you say parents raising bilingual children can “use” your books?

“Each book is different and can be used in different ways to help young children develop language and early literacy skills.  Stories like Marina y el niño verde are great for reinforcing vocabulary and sentence structure. Free audio files are available on our web site in both languages for parents to use. Of course, the most important thing parents can do with our books is use them to help show their kids how fun reading can be, so that they’ll be motivated to keep reading as they grow.”

The Giveaway:

Unfortunately, neither one of Bilingual Readers’ three books are available in the U.S. yet, but both Lyles and Gil are working hard to change that. In the meantime, as you probably know by now, part of ReadMe includes the opportunity to win a copy of the book being reviewed. In this case, it’ll be sent to you all the way from la madre patria. To win, all you have to do is visit Bilingual Readers site and come back to leave us a comment about something you learned while you were there. It’s that easy!

Giveaway rules.

This giveaway ends at midnight EST on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009.  Only valid U.S. shipping addresses.

Entries/Comments that do not follow the submission guidelines will be invalid and automatically deleted.  Sorry, just need to keep  it fair. Good luck to all!

Remember to be on the lookout for a review of Bilingual Readers’ other two books, Easy Alphabet!/¡Abecedario fácil! and Two Little Libros: Sea Animals/Animales del mar and Jungle Animales/Animales de la selva over at SpanglishBabyFinds in the weeks to come. I promise you’ll fall in love with them as quickly as I did!

One of the parts I love the most about SpanglishBaby is all the discoveries I’ve made of things I would’ve never known existed otherwise–this has been particularly true in the area of books.

As you probably know by now, back in July we launched our newest monthly series, which we call: ReadMe. We have teamed up with several Bilingual/Spanish children’s book publishers to bring you a review of a new book every month. The post includes an interview with the author in which we specifically touch upon the subject of raising bilingual and bicultural children.

Ana Lilian and I decided to create ReadMe because we wanted to have a series dedicated exclusively to literacy and bilingualism. We have all heard about the importance of reading when raising bilingual kids. We want to reinforce how fundamental this activity is by highlighting the options we all have available when it comes to bilingual children’s literature.

We also want to encourage you to read to your children or – if they’re old enough to do it themselves – to help you inspire them to do so. That’s why each monthly ReadMe will also include a giveaway of the book we’ll be reviewing

Abuelos by Pat Mora

Although Pat Mora, the author of this month’s ReadMe book, is no stranger to SpanglishBaby, the subject matter she writes about was a mystery to me prior to reading the wonderful story she came up with for her book titled, Abuelos. And, since we’re celebrating Hispanic History Month until Oct. 15, I thought this would be the perfect book to do so. Let me tell you why…

When Groundwood Books, the publisher of Mora’s Abuelos, suggested this book, I erroneously assumed from the title that it was a book about just that: abuelos or grandparents. Oh, was I in for a big and pleasant surprise.

I have always been incredibly interested in the study of cultural traditions and customs. In fact, if I hadn’t become a journalist, I always dreamed of being an anthropologist or a sociologist. I’m pretty intrigued by people and their ways. Therefore, I was thrilled after I read Mora’s book and found out that Abuelos is actually the name of a New Mexican tradition that goes back hundreds of years and it’s a bit like Halloween (because of the costumes) and Christmas (because of the ‘you better be good’ concept) mixed together, but not really…

Pat Mora

You see, legend has it that in the middle of the winter in northern New Mexico, the men from the village would go up the mountains, dress up like sooty, old men with scary masks (abuelos) and then they would go back down to check if the village’s children were behaving. The day this tradition takes place, the villagers build big bonfires and everyone gathers around them. The abuelos try to catch the children and then they have them dance and sing around the fire. The whole spectacle ends with a fiesta at one of the villager’s home where traditional treats are served and everyone has a great time! Doesn’t that sound awesome?

Mora tells the story of this tradition as seen through the eyes of two niños who experience it for the first time. The hermanos, who’ve recently moved to a small New Mexican community with their family, have been told about the tradition, but are not really sure whether it’s true or not nor when and how it’ll actually take place. More than anything, it seems as if they’re not sure whether to be scared or just simply amused by the long-standing tradition. The illustrations, by artist Amelia Lau Carling, are perfectos for this kinda-scary story with a happy ending?

The book was originally written in English with a few Spanish words sprinkled all about, but there’s also a Spanish version. In this case, however, I think the main thing about this book is that it’s a great tool to teach our niños about cultural traditions. And, even though, they might not be our own traditions, customs like this one are a good way to reinforce the importance of heritage and language–as we’ve said many times in the past.

The Giveaway:

Part of ReadMe includes the opportunity to win a copy of the book being reviewed. If you’ve read any of Pat Mora’s children’s books, then you know this is one you need to add to your collection. And, if you haven’t, this is your chance to discover a great Latina author. I promise you won’t be disappointed. To win, all you have to do is share with us a cultural tradition you like your children to know about. It’s that easy!

Giveaway rules.

This giveaway ends at midnight EST on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009.  Only valid U.S. shipping addresses.

Entries/Comments that do not follow the submission guidelines will be invalid and automatically deleted.  Sorry, just need to keep  it fair. Good luck to all!

When I heard about Ingenio, and the great bilingual toys and games they’ve created, I got extremely excited. You can probably imagine, then, just how much the excitement grew when this Spanglish mami witnessed her son putting Spanish words together.  No fuss, no saying “but mom” or “do I have to?”  Did I mention the words he was putting together where in Spanish?!?  And that he was having fun?!

Any company that helps a mamá make learning Spanish fun by making educational games like Spellable gets a G-R-E-A-T in my book.

Spellable is a new puzzle game created to help your child learn the alphabet, beginning sound words and spell three letter words in both English and Spanish. With its bright colored letters and fun picture cards it was an instant hit in our home.  My son is a proficient reader in English, but Spanish is still a work in progress for us.  Making it exciting to learn can be challenging.  With Spellable he was able to focus, look at the pictures and choose the correct letters to spell the words.  He was SO  happy when he spelled the words right that he soon started spelling more difficult words he found around the house.

What I love the most about Spellable is that it grows with your child, starting with the alphabet and working its way up to a reader.  Ingenio has it going on, specially with the very affordable price.  Go on, hurry to La Tiendita and get your Spanglish baby a new Spellable …. did I spell that right?

All of Ingenio´s bilingual toys are available via Amazon.  Of course, the best way to get them is via La Tiendita.

Today’s find, Spellable, was reviewed by Marcela Beatty, bilingual mom of a boy, a baby girl and two German Shepherds. Their cuteness is chronicled by Marcella on 8 Year Old & Babies.

The Giveaway!

This giveaway is now closed.  Congratulations to our winner:  Susan Smoaks!

Ingenio, the first educational bilingual toys and games brand in the U.S., has chosen you to be the first to get a chance to win every single one of their ten toys.  Today you can enter to win Spellable, winner of a Dr. Toy Best Vacation Product 2009 award, simply by leaving a comment telling us why you would like to win this.

That’s all you have to do to enter this giveaway.  If you want to up your chances at winning, then click here to learn how to get additional entries.

This giveaway ends tonight, Wednesday, August 26, at midnight EST.

For the part that nobody likes, but we’ve gotta have, check out the Giveaway Rules.

Surely, your child has a book she’s especially fond of and loves to be read over and over (and over) again.  She loves to hear how you imitate the sounds of the animals, how you sing the voices of certain characters, she gleefully points to the objects she wants to hear you name for the umpteenth time.  Now, imagine that same story magically brought to life, full of vibrant colors and sounds, to be watched on a screen.

That’s exactly what Moving Picture Books has done with  over 30 classic children’s tales and new favorites.

I found their site on-line some months ago while surfing for quality bilingual videos to bring to you (yep, that’s loads of homework we do around here!)  Their slogan-”Magically bringing storybooks to life!”- instantly grabbed me since it married two of my passions:  books + movies.  Around this house, we read a lot and watch a lot, en español.

What prompted me to contact the company was that they offer the visual storybooks in English and Spanish!  BIG kudos to them for including the Spanish option from the get-go.  So, I gladly accepted the DVD they eagerly sent me to review.

Each DVD comes with three animated storybooks recommended for ages 3mos-7yrs.  I was impressed by the quality and ease of navigation of the main menu.  You can easily choose to view the videos in either English, Spanish or read-along-text (English only).  Guess what option I chose first?

The Spanish translations are impeccable and the voices are professionally narrated by children and adult storytellers.  My daughter, Camila, has a fascination for babies and kids and just loves hearing children’s voices.  She completely identifies and I prefer those voices to be in Spanish.

Visually, Moving Picture Books remains faithful to the illustrators and just “magically” gives life to the artwork using vibrant colors and dynamic animations. This is definitely quality educational material for our bilingual kids!

How to Use Animated Storybooks in your Bilingual Home

How I see you using these animated storybooks at home?  As an imagination-filled compliment to your reading out-loud story time.

Let’s say you have Margaret Wang’s “The Right Shoes for Me” book at home.  You can set a time to read it with your child, have fun acting out the scenes, barking like a dog, and watching him learn to tie his shoes.  Then you ask him if he wants to see the boy and his dog come to life on a screen, hear how the dog really barks and see how the boy tie his shoes.  You either download the video from the Moving Picture Books library (.99 to $1.99 each), get the Apple app, or pop in a DVD (you’ll be able to win some here at the end of this post!) and, voilà, like magia the story you just read together is brought to life in Spanish.

If your family uses the OPOL method, then each parent has the option of playing it in their language.  If your child is learning to read in English, reinforce the process by choosing the read-along-text option.  I’m a little obsessed with options, can you tell?!

I do want to point out that the new DVD sets for sale on their  site do not include the Spanish language track.  It seems odd because they sent me six DVDs to give away that are part of their first set which do include the Spanish option.  These videos are so unique that I wished they would continue creating them in Spanish as well, especially since the full Spanish library is available to download on their site.

On Top of Spaghetti

Here’s the animated storybook of the classic “On Top of Spaghetti” in Spanish that the parents behind Moving Picture Books uploaded to YouTube so that SpanglishBaby friends can enjoy and share.  Scroll down past the video for your chance to win a collection of six DVDs!!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddc5OyZMkPM

Win a Set of Six Spanish Language DVDs from Moving Picture Books

This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to our winner CARRIE_in_TN!!  Thanks to all who entered.

One person will win the complete set of six DVDs with the Spanish language track option.  These are no longer available for sale!  How lucky are we?  All you need to do for your chance to win is visit the Moving Picture Books site here and tell us which animated storybook you would like to watch and why.

If you want to increase your chances of winning you can get additional entries by doing any of the following:

1. Subscribe to our feed via email and leave us an extra comment letting us know you did so. Make sure to leave the comment using the same email you subscribed with. And please make sure you verify the subscription when you receive the email to do so. We do check in order to validate the entry.

2. Subscribe via RSS. Once you do, or if you’re already a subscriber, email us the “Secret Phrase” at the bottom of the post to: giveaways@spanglishbaby.com.

3. Blog and/or Tweet about this giveaway. Just make sure to send us the link in an additional comment below.

For the part that nobody likes, but we’ve gotta have, check out the Giveaway Rules.

This giveaway ends at midnight EST on Thursday August 13, 2009.

Entries/Comments that do not follow the submission guidelines will be invalid and automatically deleted. Sorry, just need to keep it fair. Good luck to all!

Last week we introduced our new monthly series, ReadMe, which focuses on one bilingual/Spanish book and author per month; yesterday’s Ask an Expert dealt with when is the best time to teach your child to read in the minority language. Today, we’re exploring the topic of reading further, but through an alternative and entertaining way thanks to PBS Kids and Super Why.

You’re probably wondering why we’re taking time to write about Super Why since the show is 100% in English. We’ve always showcased Spanish-language videos since we encourage that most of our child’s media-watching be in Spanish as a way to maximize exposure to the language.  Well, there’s always exceptions to the rule and flexibility is key since every situation is different.  Plus, Super Why is an educational show, up there with Sesame Street, designed exclusively to help kids ages 3-6 with the critical skills they need to learn and love to read.

Now, the reality is that our children will learn to read in English probably before they do in Spanish, even though, as author Barbara Zurer Pearson explained in yesterday’s Ask an Expert, Spanish is much easier to learn to read than is English.  That being said, I will happily promote a quality educational show that strives to teach my daughter valuable reading skills, in any language, that will prove to be a benefit in many aspects of her life and will open up the doors to the love of books.

Super Why is a TV series airing on PBS that is best described as an interactive reading adventure. Kids are rapidly enthralled by the team of super heroes, each boasting a unique reading power:  Alpha Pig (with Alphabet Power), Wonder Red (with Word Power), Princess Presto (with Spelling Power), and Super Why (with the Power to Read).  This is definitely the type of Princesa I want Camila to identify with!!

SUPER WHY’s signature educational approach includes:

• promoting books as a resource for solving problems kids tend to face in preschool and in life
• interactivity that facilitates practice and learning
• seamless integration of story and literacy content

In each episode, the Super Readers experience a preschool-related problem, fly into a book to find the answer and apply what was learned to resolve the problem.  You can take it a step forward by using the lesson plans and activities they’ve created to be used with each episode to maximize its educational value.

I’ve also considered that this show can be a great tool for children learning English as a Second Language (ESL) since it incorporates basic language and reading skills such as letter identification, word decoding, phonemic awareness, word encoding and phonics. I was curious to find out if the show’s creators had given any thought to the series as an ESL tool, so I contacted Angela Santomero, Super Why’s visionary creator and Executive Producer. This is what she has to say:

“We have recently created a French-language pilot and conducted some initial pilot testing, which had strong appeal and potential for use as an ESL tool. We hope to develop a Spanish language version as well.”

We also hope they develop a Spanish version!  Wouldn’t we all love this?  I say we should let PBS know we want more educational series like this one which promote language learning, specifically in Spanish. Doesn’t the fact that one out of four children today are Latinos count as an influencing factor?  I’m sure it does if they can hear us. So why don’t you head over to PBS Parents and leave a comment on the Learning with PBS Kids page to let them know how much we love all the useful content they actually do provide for us in Spanish (have you checked out their awesome PBS Kids Island in español or the Aprende con Sesame videos?)  and how we would appreciate getting more content geared specifically towards bilingual children. If you write, they will listen.

If you’ve never had a chance to watch the show, here’s a clip from the Hansel and Gretel episode that was made available to SpanglishBaby friends.

You can watch full episodes on your local PBS station, on the Super Why website or subscribe and download them via the free ITunes video podcast (mp4).

Yet another way to watch this show is by winning one of the TWO DVDs we have to give away!

To Enter the GIVEAWAY:

This giveaway is  now closed. The winners will be announced shortly.  Thanks to all who entered.

Leave us a comment telling us how you would use Super Why with your kids to enhance either their reading or language skills.

If you want to increase your chances of winning you can get additional entries by doing any of the following:

1. Subscribe to our feed via email and leave us an extra comment letting us know you did so. Make sure to leave the comment using the same email you subscribed with.  And please make sure you verify the subscription when you receive the email to do so.  We do check in order to validate the entry.

2.  Subscribe via RSS.  Once you do, or if you’re already a subscriber, email us the “Secret Phrase” at the bottom of the post to:  giveaways@spanglishbaby.com.

3. Blog and/or Tweet about this giveaway. Just make sure to send us the link in an additional comment below.

For the part that nobody likes, but we’ve gotta have, check out the Giveaway Rules.

This giveaway ends at midnight EST on Sunday, August 2nd, 2009.

Entries/Comments that do not follow the submission guidelines will be invalid and automatically deleted.  Sorry, just need to keep  it fair. Good luck to all!

Photo by shutterbugMike

We hope all of you are having a great Independence weekend and that you were lucky enough to see some amazing fireworks – as we were It was truly something else to see Vanessa’s amazement and to hear sus gritos de plena felicidad!

Today’s links to everything bilingual include a bit of everything, including a reminder to enter our last Bilingual Summer Fun giveaway and an exciting announcement about the week ahead.

1) Bilingual Readers: Freebies for Bilingual Families – “We were so excited to find two great websites full of free activities for helping parents develop children’s reading levels. Both sites are available in English and Spanish (one is available in French and German too!), and both are 100% free.” Gracias for these and more resources from our friends at Bilingual Readers! These are all definitely worth checking out!

2) Mashable, The Social Media Guide: How To Learn and Practice Languages Using Social Media – “Given the globalized online world we live in, learning a new language has never been easier — nor as interactive, interesting, and social! From Twitter to blogs to social networks, there are numerous ways you can start your social language learning and keep it up while making new friends. A roundup of ways that you can use social media to learn a language and connect with native speakers. This is just a taste of the many language learning sites available across the social web. Wow! I am impressed! I had no idea! Has anyone ever used any of these? I know I will soon and I’ll definitely let you know what I think…

3) RLPR: Peanut Butter and the Art of Cultural Adaptation – “We speak español at RLPR, though we sometimes misinterpret each other. Tal vez es porque hablamos argentino, peruano, panameño, mexicano, salvadoreño, puertorriqueño and more – so we have to do some work to decipher each other’s dialects. While this is unquestionably conducive to our ability to do good work, it comes with its challenges. On more than one occasion we’ve been distracted by the impromptu Independence Day celebration in the kitchen with pisco sours – not to mention the dispute that arises when the drink’s origin gets called into question (Peru vs. Chile, anyone?).” This was hilarious and so true! We’ve talked about this topic before here and I know we will continue to do so. BTW, not only are Pisco Sours Peruvian, so is Pisco…I should know, right?

4) Bilingual Summer Fun Week of Giveaways – Our whole week of giveaways ends tonight at midnight EST. You can still enter to win two fabulous premios: one for the pequeños and one for YOU!! I promise you’ll love both of them. So, what are you waiting for? What to do: go here and here for more details!

Finally, I just wanted to let you all know that we’ve prepared a whole week dedicated exclusively to the most popular method used out there by those of you raising bilingual children. We’re talking the One Parent/One Language (OPOL) method. We have all kinds of posts prepared for you regarding this topic, as well as more giveaways! So we hope to see you around here next week. Promete ser una semana interesante…

If you like what we’re talking about sign up for free SpanglishBaby updates via email or via RSS. You’ll like it.