Progressive Spanish for the very young

[Jackie]

My kindergartener attended a part-time, partial-immersion Spanish preschool. She has used Little Pim, Salsa Spanish, and Song School Spanish. We're about to go spend a month in Guatemala so we can both immerse ourselves in Spanish. I speak very little Spanish, probably a smidge more than her. I'm trying to learn with DuoLingo, but language acquisition is a particular struggle for me.

 

She very much wants to be able to speak Spanish. Her fine motor skills lag well behind her language skills, though, and she barely writes. We tried DuoLingo, but it is unforgiving of spelling mistakes and she would fail levels over and over for typing the wrong letter, which was really discouraging. She is a strong reader (about 5th-6th grade level in English) if that helps find a good fit at all.

 

It seems all the foreign language materials for kids cover the basics with no route to progress from there. Any suggestions where we go from here?

[EndOfOrdinary]

Our library just acquired a large mass of leveled readers in Spanish. They are wonderful for stepping past board books and into beginning stories, yet keeping grammar simple. You might check.

[Jackie]

I wish! Our library does have a Spanish language section, but it's tiny and the reading level of the books mostly jumps from board books to upper elementary. We're not there yet, though we do check out the books sometimes. Actually, I splurged a little while ago and bought two of the "50 Spanish books in a box" fom the Scholastic store. One box is K-1 level and the other is grades 2-3. These are our main Spanish at the moment, while we keep playing with Salsa and Song School.

 

When we return from Guatemala, I think I'll pull The Fun Spanish workbook off the shelf. It will be a stretch for her writing skills, and the majority of the vocabulary is something she already knows. But the verb conjugations will be relatively new to her, as will the sentence structure and noun/adjective agreement. Then I'm crossing my fingers DuoLingo will be a better fit. Or that the vocabulary for both of us will increase enough on our trip that the library books won't be so difficult.

 

I would still love to have an incremental curriculum that starts at Song School level at goes up from there. Really wish it existed!

[Miss Tick]

While you are in Guatemala, maybe you can find a bookstore!

 

I commiserate about the lack of an incremental approach. Boo.

 

In the meantime, and I don't even want to imply this is a replacement, but for additional reading material, you could check out:

Tesoros.macmillanmh.com/national/teachers

 

The "conexión con el hogar" section has some weekly readers that are set up by grade levels.

 

What I dream of are Spanish materials that increment year by year, and cover a variety of content subjects AND instructional points. It would have been great to find a reader about Queen Isabella of Aragon in Spanish when we talked about her in history. I could go on.

[Steven]

I went through similar issues with my daughter. (Although we had already raised her bilingual in English and German before we started Spanish). My daughter was also very slow at writing, so any written course just did not cut it. But personally I don't think that matters. Language at her age is primarily oral and auditory. She should be picking up the patterns by using them and hearing them used. At the end of third grade, we did a language course for 3 weeks in Mexico. It really helped. I would emphasize to the language school that written exercises is not going to be real helpful or appropriate. Playing, coloring, arts and crafts, picture books that require interaction with the teacher (or other native speakers, especially children) should be the main part of her instruction, in my opinion. If I had forced my daughter to write, that would have been the end of her Spanish. 

 

Due to the time of year we went to Mexico, there were no other children enrolled in the school, and unfortunately, we lived with a widow who had no children in the household (just a 20 year old niece). Finding a place and children to play with every day was critical for my daughter. We hung out at the main plaza and she played with the children of the street vendors (although I did have some concerns about contagious disease). Be prepared to buy some toys, etc. from the vendors to attract kids to play if you have to. Take along some toys (good quality jump ropes, balls, etc. that you can leave behind with new friends when you leave). 

 

I never really found a Spanish text that I liked for my daughter. I recommend lots of CDs with songs and stories. By the time you return from Guatemala, she may surprise you at the books on CDs that she can follow. Spanish language cartoons on DVDs are also a good choice. 

 

Unfortunately, I found that Mexico has a very poor selection of books and CDs for children (especially compared to what we can find for German). I expect that Guatemala will be the same. Don't expect to find many appropriate CDs or books in Guatemala. 

[Jackie]

Susan, I hadn't seen that website before. I'll have to explore it more later. Thanks!

 

Steven, she will actually be attending a Guatemalan daycare/preschool while I am at the language school, due to her age. I hope to attend a language school with her in a couple of years when direct instruction may be a better fit. Thanks for letting me know your experiences!

 

This is a kid who loves language and the lack of resources is proving very frustrating in general. Fortunately, we have found great, engaging curriculum for English Language Arts. It's foreign language where we're getting stuck. Spanish seems to have lots of introductory material available, then a gap until you hit late elementary level. French is proving similarly difficult, but we're intentionally keeping that introductory level while focusing on Spanish. She is also begging to learn Arabic, which neither my husband nor I have any experience with. We're stalling her on that last one. Our plan is to have her speaking Spanish reasonably well over the next few years, then upping her French level from introductory. If she manages basic fluency in both of those and is still interested in another foreign language, we'll attempt Arabic as a family then.