Bilingual Resources for Teaching Babies & Toddlers Spanish – for the English Speaking Parent

First of all, if you haven’t read my post, “How Kids Learn – 5 surprising differences between adults and children”, make sure you go read that 🙂

In this post, I just want to share with you all our favorite board books, CDs, apps, etc for learning Spanish. Before I get started, let me answer the “Why” question, and the “How” question.

Why should babies and toddlers learn to speak a second language?

Did you read my “How Kids Learn” article?  Remember that what is very difficult to us as adults, comes with ease to a child. If they hear a second language from birth, they will pick up on it.  If they are exposed to it enough, they will be bilingual! In the first few years of a child’s life is when they soak up the most information. Between the ages of 0-6 years old is the golden time to teach them so many wonderful things, that will be MUCH harder to learn when they are older.  To small children, learning is play, so make sure that their play is filled with lots of learning. 🙂

When you hear a second language from birth, you are able to pronounce the words better.  My understanding is that young children are able to hear and adopt tones and inflections that are nearly impossible to learn as an adult. They have a HUGE advantage by learning to speak even just basic words in a second language, when they are still a toddler.

How can I have a bilingual child when I only speak one language?

You undoubtedly have to put more effort into raising a bilingual child when you do not speak that second language yourself. But it is possible, and the outcome is determined by how much time you put into it.  When I planned to have my kids learn Spanish from birth, I did not have any children yet.  My expectations of myself, and what I would do with my kids to help them become bilingual, were unrealistic (to be completely honest.)  However, even though they haven’t reached “bilingual” status, they have a good, solid start to learning Spanish.

Determine what your goals are…

Do you want them to understand, speak, read, and write the second language fluently?  Or do you want to simply teach them how to understand and speak it as a child– and learn to read and write it later?   What you decide in terms of how much you want them to learn, will obviously affect how much time and resources to put toward your efforts.

I have kids ages 3, 2, and 1 and so far (using the resources I’m going to share with you) they have learned to listen and understand people who are speaking Spanish (it is difficult at this point to tell to what level they have achieved this), learned many individual Spanish words including colors, shapes, the alphabet, counting, food, small greeting phrases, household objects, and a few more, and have a distinctly better pronunciation of Spanish words than I do!

What you need to do…

Download the Duolingo app.  It is free!  It is said to be as effective as a Rosetta Stone program, and I think it is.  I have learned hundreds of Spanish words by using the app. I don’t speak Spanish, but learning how to pronounce the words makes it possible for me to read bilingual books to the kids. You will definitely want to do this so you are not messing up the pronunciations for them, and teaching the language incorrectly.  You can also utilize YouTube to find pronunciations for individual words you need help with. Search “Spanish word for Banana” and there will be multiple video clips teaching you how to say it!

Duolingo can also be used on a computer, but I prefer the app because I can pull it up when I’m riding in the car, or waiting on someone, or feeding a baby, etc. and do a few lessons. Search for it in the app store.

Resources for the Kids

For the last three years I have been building our collection of bilingual board books and CDs for the children. There are definitely some that are better than others for little tots than. CDs are important, because the more they listen to the language, the better they will be at speaking and understanding it.  Books are also important, because they are visual.  The books I’m going to share are mostly one word per page, making the information clear and easy to digest.

Books

We have an entire shelf of Spanish books, but our absolute must-have favorites are the following:

Board books by Rebecca Emberley

I highly recommend this board book series by Rebecca Emberley to get your bilingual book collection started.  If your children learn the words in these 9 books they will know 168 Spanish words!  I love these because they are all common words that they need to know!  

My Food Mi Comida

My Colors Mis Colores

My Shapes Mis Formas 

My Clothes Mi Ropa

My Toys Mis Juguetes

My Garden Mi Jardin

My Opposites Mis Opuestos

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My Numbers Mis Numeros

My City Mi Ciudad

Bright Baby Series

Bright Baby Bilingual Series, by Roger Priddy, is also great. I think it is especially good for very young children, or kids who have shorter attention spans.  These four books have been Michael’s favorite books on our shelf for the last couple of months (he is 15 months now) They use actual photos in this series, which I think is nice! 

Animals Animales

First Words Primeras Palabras

Colors Colores

Trucks Camiones

First 100 Words

If you want the most words for your $$, then grab this big board book. It teaches 100 words and is priced at $6.09! Sweet deal. This book has been used over and over and over again in our house.  They never get tired of it!

First 100 Words

Good Morning & Goodnight Books by DK

Michael is also a fan of these baby books. They are not one-word per page like the other books I just recommended. Instead they have simple sentences, and bit of a storyline.

Buenos dias, bebe! (Good Morning, Baby!)

Buenos noches, bebe! (Goodnight, Baby!)

Music CDs

Bilingual Folk Songs

This CD by Jose-Luis Orozco is fabulous! The music is so fun, and each Spanish song is followed by the same song in English! How awesome!!  You can hear sound samples of this CD {Here}.  I’m definitely going to be purchasing more of his CDs in the future, although most of his are entirely in Spanish. I like that the words are clear, and the music has a lilting, happy feel to it.

Esta Es Mi Tierra – This Land is My Land 

Cedarmont Kids 

Cedarmont Kids Spanish version of classic action Bible songs, and traditional Hymns. I like these because the kids hear the English version in church and hear these at home.   You can also get the English version from Cedarmont as well, if you want that option. There are many more in this series, but we like these two:

Cantos Biblicos con Accion (Action Bible Songs)

Cedarmont Kids “Himnos” (Hymns)

Lastly, in addition to these resources, it’s great if your children are able to be around people who can speak to them in Spanish, and interact directly with them. I have a friend who’s first language is Spanish, and we trade violin lessons for Spanish lessons once a week.

Even if you can’t do weekly lessons, your child can learn so many words from books and CDs!

These are our favorites. If you have bilingual resources you love, be sure to comment and tell us about them. 🙂