Keeping up the pace in our bilingual journey

Thanks Carrie If you have any tips on how to teach my daughter to read, they are most welcome.

My son could read in Spanish before starting school but somehow I never really "taught" him. He started looking at the text during our read alouds and would ask what does it say here now and then, then I started asking him at the beginning of each chapter we were reading if he could read the title and I helped him when he couldn't and then he could read in Spanish. He still follows the text when I read aloud to him and points out if I ever make any mistakes.

My daughter is very different and she's not so interested in read alouds as his brother was/is (although she's starting now which makes me very happy ) and she's also not so interested in learning to read. But I think in her case it's even more important than it was for her brother to learn before the ML comes.

Welcome to this challenge Marta!

I have not doubt that -like the rest of us who have a Track your progress thread- you will almost become addicted to the accountability you derive from it
It is brilliant to put down these ideas that swarm in your mind, and work the best way to put them into practice. And obviously it will also be brilliant to track the progress of your kids.

Enjoy!

Marta, I think you've just begun a great thread, too! Stick with this thread, and with your efforts, and I'm sure you'll achieve your aim of advancing your children's ability in Spanish (as well as their ability in English) at a strong and satisfying pace.

I look forward to following your posts here!

Marta,

All these already sound like great achievements! Your eldest keeping his diary on his own, your daughter running after you for read-aloud time, and your little one chatting away in ml and teaching it to ML speakers. I think you should be very proud of your work!

Take it a step at a time. The weekend is here, and maybe you'll find the time to look up those reading activities you wanted for your daughter.

Extremely wise words Alison ! I couldn't agree more. You have summed up one of the essences of this adventure: firm ml habits!

That's great you've planned some next steps. Writing it out can be so helpful in letting you identify exactly how you can improve things and holding yourself accountable. I hope it goes well this week.

The homework routine for my 9 year old worked beautifully. He managed all the things before the week was over and asked for more. We had a card game he got for Christmas that we still had not played so I asked him to read the game directions (in Spanish) and learn how to play it, then he could explain it to me and we would play it together and so we did. Also he was programming a game as a ML school assignment and I asked him to translate the game instructions he had written in the ML to ml so that also ml children could play his game, which he did. On Sunday he asked me to do a new homework plan for this week and also had suggestions on tasks.

With my daughter I have not started with the homework routine, but I have collected some ideas on games to play related to learning to read. I have the goal of doing at least one of them with her this week.

I downloaded some new audio books for the car rides that have been very successful with all three kids. And we've kept our read aloud routine strong.

My sister was over for the weekend which brought a lot of fun in ml for everyone.

Hi Marta,

I think playing games is a perfect way to start. Even before formal reading lessons you can play games to learn reading skills. One idea is to play with rhyming words - phonological awareness is an important reading skill. You can easily search online for free printable rhyming cards in Spanish.

I also did syllable counting games. For example I wrote the numbers 1-4 on index cards and then got a stack of cards from a memory game. We turned over the memory picture cards one at a time, clapped out the syllables, and then put it with the correct index card to show how many syllables each word was. My son actually really liked this game a lot.

I taught all the vowels first, and then the consonants, making them into syllables with the vowels. So after we learned AEIOU, we learned M and how to read ma, me, mi, mo, mu. I think this is the standard way to teach reading in Spanish. It is very different than teaching to read in English.

The order I used to teach the alphabet is found here: monarcalanguage.com/downloads/letters/Letters-4s-Planner.pdf

I actually bought the Monarca Language bundle (not their whole club membership, just a pdf download) and used a lot of their worksheet pages. For $9 you get a 193 page pdf that you can print. It is not perfect, but I use it as a base. I don’t print all their handwriting sheets, and I do supplement with extra resources, but as a base I like it. Once you are ready to start teaching the alphabet more formally, you can check out that link here: www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Programa-Completo-de-Lecto-Escritura-fonetica-silabas-lectura-y-escritura-2298368

I also found a lot of printables online that taught the letters but using coloring, cutting, pasting, etc. This is much better initially than pages that rely heavily on handwriting. I would teach reading first and leave the handwriting for later when their fine motor skills are more developed. Sometimes if I really like a worksheet but it has handwriting we will build the words with scrabble tiles rather than writing it on the page.

Here’s a few examples of free printables:

Color in objects that start with vowel (you do need a free account to download this)
www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Las-Vocales-A-E-I-O-U-Freebie-1533445

Vowel booklet
honeybops.blogspot.com/2013/03/free-spanish-vowel-tracing-and-coloring.html?m=1

“M” syllables
www.aprendeaprenda.com/material_m.htm
and...
www.imageneseducativas.com/recopilacion-de-fichas-para-trabajar-las-silabas-ma-me-mi-mo-mu/

Just a few thoughts for you for now! Have fun!

Carrie

Spanish Playground just published a new post yesterday about activities with spring vocabulary. One of the ideas is a syllable clapping board game that looks fun. I thought of you, Marta. 

www.spanishplayground.net/spanish-spring-activities-vocabulary-list/