We’re excited! Disney Interactive and Rosetta Stone have joined forces to promote the value of learning languages for our kids!

Together they have launched a new online original series, it’s a small world: the animated series inspired by the iconic Disney Parks attraction that’s always a must-do during our visits to the parks.  Premiering on Disney.com, Disney’s YouTube network and across Disney’s connected TV apps, the new series does a fabulous job at taking the multicultural and multilingual experience of the attraction online for our generation of kids.

Sponsored exclusively by Rosetta Stone and their new language learning apps for kids (our review here), the eight episode series introduces families to unique words and customs from around the world. Our kids will get to join a group of children from different countries across the globe to explore new lands in a digital narrative brought to life through animation inspired by Disney artist Mary Blair’s original designs for the popular theme park attraction.

Beautifully done, in short 4 minute webisodes, we wholeheartedly celebrate that the theme of it’s a small world: the animated series centers around introducing the concept of learning languages and cultures to understand each other better.

The first webisode finds the children at the British Museum of Art and touches upon subjects like  how using the same word, like “football,” can mean different things in different languages and that some words can sound similar in different languages and can cause mix ups.  Oh, how we know about that! A topic near and dear to us parents raising bilingual kids!

To view the first three episodes of it’s a small world: the animated series visit disney.com/smallworld or watch the first episode below.

The Rosetta Stone – It’s a Small World presents on Disney Video

¡Cuéntanos! Did you like it? We’ve been working hard for years advocating with media, apps creators and toy companies to create more products for bilingual and multilingual children and that celebrate diversity. They DO want and need to hear from you, so please share in the comments section so they know we want more of these quality shows for our kids. ¡Gracias!

Rosetta Stone®, an international language education leader, has introduced a new kids division! With the launch of the Lingo Letter Sounds app, the groundbreaking company brings its skills into the world of early childhood language acquisition. We are excited to share this development with you just as much as the app, since the backing of popular linguistic educators brings even greater legitimacy to the goal of our bilingual families.

Lingo Letter Sounds combines all the basics of a fun app – adorable characters, beautiful graphics, and cute games – with effective reading and speaking practice. Kids can play with letter sounds in bubbles to improve English reading skills or use the Spanish Speak & Learn game to see if their pronunciation of common words is good enough to make the characters move and dance.

My favorite feature of this app is the sheer amount of content. Though there are just two game modes (and one toy shelf for viewing the toys you’ve earned), there are enough words to provide two hours of playing time! This is unique in the realm of free kids’ apps. Also, check out your child’s progress in the Parent Corner.

The opportunity to practice spoken Spanish with this app is resonant of Rosetta Stone’s most commonly used technology-based methods for picking up language skills. Instead of just spelling or reading words, kids speak them into the device and get immediate feedback. This is much more fun than having a parent approve of and correct their pronunciation!

Download this first release from the renowned developer and let them know that we want more like it in the future!

Find Rosetta Stone® Kids Lingo Letter Sounds in iTunes

Available for iPad and iPhone

Recommended for ages 3-6

Price: FREE

The reasons for raising a bilingual child are varied. For me, it’s mostly because I can’t fathom my children not speaking my mother tongue, not being able to communicate with my family back in Peru or my husband’s family in Puerto Rico. But it’s also because of all the proven cognitive benefits of speaking more than one language as well as the financial advantages.

I recently got the opportunity to show my 6-year-old daughter Vanessa exactly how it pays to be bilingual. A friend told me Rosetta Stone — the computer assisted language learning program — was looking for native Spanish-speaking children between the ages of 5 and 9 to do some research on speech recognition technology in kids. Apparently, they’re currently developing a kid’s program.

According to the details I got, Vanessa would be given the text and audio in Spanish for several sentences and all she had to do was repeat so her voice could be recorded. In exchange, Rosetta Stone would give her a $25 Visa gift card. It sounded like a pretty simple task, so I signed her up and then explained it to her. When I told her she would actually get paid for her participation, her eyes opened wide. Although she doesn’t really understand a lot about money just yet, she knew $25 was a lot. Since she had been bugging me to buy her some toys, she was ecstatic.

Once we got to the Rosetta Stone office in Boulder, we were taken to a room with a computer and Vanessa was given a set of headphones with a microphone. Just like it was explained to me, Vanessa would hear a sentence (and see the text on the computer screen) and all she had to do was repeat it so her voice could be recorded. At first, she was pretty shy, and her voice was barely audible. But after the first few sentences she realized there wasn’t much to it and became more confident, as you can see in the video below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSQqS5LNqcQ

The whole thing lasted one hour and Vanessa did great. She stumbled over some of the words, especially when it came to large numbers, but overall she did amazing and I was beaming with pride. Once she was done, she was given her $25 gift card and couldn’t contain her happiness. I wasted no time telling her that this was only possible because she’s bilingual and I think she actually got what I was saying.

Rosetta Stone in Boulder, Colorado is still looking for more native Spanish-speaking kids interested in participating in their study. If you’d like more information, you can contact Megan Sills at msills@rosettastone.com.