Reading Picture Books in Spanish

Everyone knows that it’s good to read books to children. The benefits of reading aloud are numerous. But what people might not know, or maybe think about, is that it’s also good to read books to children in another language. It sounds kind of hard and scary, right? I have been trying to be better about reading picture books in Spanish to my children. I have found what works, and I have found what doesn’t work. Maybe you have studied Spanish some, or have picked up bits and pieces of a second language. Either way, whether you speak it well or falter at times, it’s still worth the effort to read aloud in another language. The question is, “How do you read aloud a picture book in Spanish?”

Problems

Recently I started noticing some problems with my read alouds in Spanish.

I was reading books once, and then running out of picture books at my kids’ level.
My library doesn’t have a large Spanish picture book selection, so I was spending more money to purchase my own.
I wasn’t doing read alouds in Spanish consistently.
The easy books at my kids’ level were babyish.
My kids weren’t always excited.

I needed to fix something.

Repeated Readings

Repeated readings were the biggest difference that fixed a lot of my problems. In the past, I would pick a book, an easy book, and read it aloud once. After a while, I ran out of easy picture books. What I decided to do was choose one picture book to reread every day for a week. It took the load off of hunting for good books, and immediately, I had less work to do.

Secondly, repeated readings were helpful because I could pick a more advanced book. The text was more complex, but since we were going to be rereading it multiple times, it was doable. The babyish books were at my kids’ comprehension level, but not at their interest level. I think that was one reason why they didn’t always enjoy the read alouds. They could only understand the books that their three-year old sister would enjoy in English. They wanted to understand the more difficult ones, but they were too hard.

Lastly, telling myself that I am going to read a picture book aloud every day for a week made me more consistent. The more consistent I was, the less arguing I saw. Reading a picture book aloud takes about five minutes. That’s really not a huge amount of time.

How to Read Aloud Picture Books in Spanish

Introduce New Words

I start with talking about some of the words they we will hear in the story. Honestly, I don’t really plan this a whole lot. I just skim the book and find the most repeated words that my kids don’t know. Next, we talk about the words. I tell them to keep their ears open for the words as I read.

My type A child writes all the new words down on notecards. My type B child eats a bowl of nuts and nods his head.

Read Slow

The first reading is really sloooooww. We stop and pause and talk about what’s happening. My kids still respond in English, but I encourage them to respond in Spanish. I assume it’s all a process. They chime in when they hear one of their new words.

The next day I read the book a little bit faster. We still talk about the words and what’s happening. Each day I read faster and faster. If the book is on audio (Audible or Hoopla), then I will use that towards the end of the week because the narrators tend to read quickly. It’s also a good opportunity to pull away from the picture book and let my kids just listen to the story.

Goals

This is something I am still working on getting better at. Some goals I have are:

Keep doing weekly repeated read alouds
Have my kids narrate what happened in Spanish
Slowly read more complex books

Read Alouds That Have Worked

My rule is that it needs to be a physical picture book. I have had my children listen to audiobooks in Spanish online without the aid of pictures, and I find that their reading comprehension tanks. Someday we will do just audiobooks in Spanish, but for now we need the pictures.

Here are some books that were easy and enjoyable.

These books are good if you kids know basic Spanish vocabulary (colors, food, animals, etc…)

Learning With Your Kids

This idea isn’t all that popular, but I think it’s possible, and also fun, to learn a second language along-side your children. Not many people have time to do that, but a homeschooling family might be able to squeeze that time in. We are currently using Flip Flop Spanish. Reading picture books in Spanish works really well with this curriculum. I will keep hunting for good picture books in Spanish and share them with you all.

Leave a comment about your experience reading picture books in Spanish.

Carly from deserthomeschooldays.com