Raising a Bilingual Child

It might seem overwhelming thinking about how to raise a child bilingually. You may be in a household where one spouse knows a different native language than you, or you may be in a household where you both speak the same native language but live in a country where another language is the majority. Can I teach my child a language if I have a full-time job? What if my child doesn’t want to learn? How can I balance this? What if their native language suffers? What if they fall behind? These are all natural concerns for parents and rightfully so! You want the best for your child no matter what. So, I’m writing this post to give you some tips on how to approach raising a bilingual child! I base a lot of my recommendations from my own experience as a dual language teacher, a child who was raised bilingually and from two excellent books titled “7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child” by Naomi Steiner and "The Bilingual Edge" by Kendall King and Alison Mackey.

Here are MY 6 main tips for raising a bilingual child:

1.       Define your goals as a bilingual parent/household

2.       Create a Bilingual Action Plan (from the book “7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child” by Naomi Steiner)

3.       Integrate the second language within the technology already being used in their household (such as iPad apps, YouTube videos, online books). For example, these are some great YouTube channels in Spanish to utilize in your home:

a.       El Reino Infantil

b.       Lunacreciente

c.       Kidsmmersion

4.       Read, Read, Read

a.       A strong foundation in a child’s native language is a great predictor of their success in their second language acquisition.

5.       Write, Write, Write (in a meaningful context)

a.       Give children the opportunity to use the Spanish vocabulary they are learning in a meaningful context (grocery lists, labels around the house, words around the community, etc).

6.       Use the target language in context (make it fun!)

a.       Whenever possible, create opportunities for students to use the target language in a meaningful way and most importantly – make it fun! Language learning should be engaging, exciting and interactive!

The most important tip I have for language learning is to make it “comprehensible” which means, to make sure you are doing everything you can for your child to understand. This is mostly done through using as many visuals (images, videos, songs, poems) as possible! Remember that language learning is a long journey and any small stride is a success! Another important aspect of language learning is for it to be “interactive” – give your child opportunities to interact with other children who are being raised bilingually (playdates, outings, etc) and provide them activities where they will be interacting in a meaningful way with the target language. Therefore, it is crucial for you to give your children opportunities to produce the language orally and to interact with other children who are bilingual or being raised bilingually.

Here are some recommended books that are great reads for parents wanting to or already are raising their children bilingually:

1.       The Bilingual Edge by Kendall King and Alison Mackey

2.       7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child by Naomi Steiner

3.       Raising a Bilingual Child by Barbara Zurer Pearson and Living Language

4.       Maximize Your Child’s Bilingual Ability: Ideas and Inspiration foreven greater success and joy raising bilingual kids by Adam Beck

Hands-On Centers

One of the focal aspects of our daily routine include our learning centers, math centers and our literacy workshops. An important facet of these centers includes engaging students with exploratory hands-on games and activities that aim at teaching the standards/content area goals for each week! One of the most exciting ways to get students engaged is to #SetTheStageToEngage and provide students with exciting and engaging activities that will have them looking forward to doing that center.

One of the main things that I try to do is include centers related to our thematic units of study. Below are some examples of some centers I have done that are related to our units of study:

Pilgrim/Native American Unit:

• Students get to "fish" for sight words! I have sight words glued onto fish cut-outs and then attach a paper clip to each fish. Students utilize magnetic fishing rods to "fish" the sight word, read it and then write it on their paper.
• I put out Lincoln Logs and images of actual log cabins and homes that the pilgrims/Native Americans used to live in. Students had to utilize the logs to build/recreate those images.

Plant Unit: Students get to "dig" for sight words! I get a big black tub, fill it with beans (to simulate dirt/soil), and then print sight words on paper carrots and place them in the bucket. Students use plastic toy shovels to "dig" for the sight word, read it and write it on their paper.

Space Unit: I print yellow stars with sight words on them and tape them underneath a table. Students have to lay down under the table and write down 10 sight words on their papers, as if they're looking up at the night sky.

Community Helpers Unit: Each week I organized a mini-dramatic play/literacy center where students got to be construction workers, doctors, vets and bakery chefs. The main literacy focus of the center was to have students find the missing syllable/vowel that completed words that were printed on buildings (construction workers), animals (vets), and pastries (chefs). I set up the area to simulate that occupation and students got to dress up, use tools and record their answers on a corresponding response sheet.

Animal Unit: I bought the caterpillars from Insect Lore and gave each student a butterfly life cycle recording journal. Every few days the students would get an opportunity to record what they were observing through the use of illustrations and words!

Now, of course you won't be able to include these specialized centers every week (just not physically feasible!) but there is an opportunity to make your centers hands-on and engaging every week! With simple things such as including games (spinners, using dice, using manipulatives, using magnetic letters) and with activities that allow students to get up from their chairs and move around! Especially with our dual language learners, I find it so immensely important to create an environment where they are excited about going to centers and being in class that their "affective filter" (Krashen) is lowered and they are at ease and comfortable!

What kind of centers and activities do YOU use in your classroom? Can you think of ways to revamp your centers?

Staying Organized!

So, ideally, every teacher is uber organized and enjoys the satisfaction of seeing their organization come to fruition and aid in their sanity! I would personally say that this holds even truer for teachers in two-way 50/50 dual language immersion programs! Being that I am a Kindergarten teacher in such a program where I work super (and I mean SUPER) closely with the English side teacher, we pride ourselves in how we have organized our program - including a two-day schedule, math unit charts and thematic unit charts!

In this post, I'll share samples of our charts and how we utilize them to inform our teaching and to make sure that we are not repeating information and that our groups of students are not receiving the material twice in both languages (what a waste of time that would be!).

First, here is a look at our rough copy of our daily two-day schedule rotation. As you will notice, we are both doing the "same thing" but just with a different group of kids. Basically, let's say DAY 1 is on Monday, then both myself and Mrs. Looky (my super awesome partner!) would be doing Calendar/Poetry/Shared Reading, and our Reading Groups/Learning Centers at the same time, just with our own respective group of students. THEN, that same day, we would switch groups of students after lunch and we would both then doing Math Centers, Writing/Literacy Workshops and our Science or SS lesson with our afternoon group of kids! Then, on Tuesday, we would both follow the DAY 2 schedule (which is basically Day 1, flipped!).

So that is our basic two-day schedule chart to its bare bones! It has made our planning for each week and month much easier and it has allowed for us to make sure we are getting all the standards, content and activities in but without repeating it with each group of students!

In addition, for our math curriculum, we teach our GoMath chapters utilizing Math Centers, so we have a whole separate chart for that. At the beginning of the unit, we rip the chapters out and send them home so students can work/practice at home with their parents and that way, the parents know the vocabulary we are using in class and they can also see what their child is learning in school!

Basically, we decided that we will teach 5 centers at a time for the math skill we are working on, meaning, that we will both have the same exact math centers happening in each of our rooms, but we have students go to ONE center per day in one language and then the next day they go to the next center in the other language, and so forth. Basically, each group will get, out of those 5 centers, 2 in Spanish and 3 in English OR 3 in Spanish and 2 in English. Here is a sample of one of our math charts:

As you can see, the children move to the next center the next day, just in the OTHER language. For example, imagine Group 1... This will be Group 1's rotation through the math centers for that skill/chapter:

Monday: CENTER 1 - English

Tuesday: CENTER 2 - Spanish

Wednesday: CENTER 3 - English

Thursday: CENTER 4 - Spanish

Friday: CENTER 5 - English

This way, they are all receiving all of the math skills, just half of the time they are receiving them in Spanish and the other half in English. We also run our classrooms this way to ensure that we are being as efficient as possible with the time that we have with each group (we really only have about 2 hours with each group!!)AND to ensure that we aren't repeating any content!

Finally, we have our VERY important thematic unit charts! So we teach our standards through thematic units and for each thematic unit we created a Unit Chart where we specify what graphic organizers, writing activities, collaborative group activities, technology (videos, songs) and poetry we will be doing with which group of students and in which language! For all intents and purposes, we call our morning group of kids our AM group and our afternoon group of kids our PM group and I am "Pantin" (the Spanish side) and my partner is "Looky" (the English side). Here is a sample of one of our unit charts:

As you can see, by using a chart like this we stay organized throughout our unit and we are able to tell what we need to cover with which group, making our lives SO much easier! Of course, we communicate daily and let each other know if perhaps we didn't get to cover something that day or if something came up, but overall, these thematic unit charts have been amazing at helping us stay focused on what we need to get done with each group!

Here are some other Unit Chart examples:

I just finished putting together our last three charts for this school year!...AND I must admit, they look MUCH cuter with a bright colored paper!

Finally, my partner and I do all 40 conferences together, since we are both teachers to all 40 of our kids! Therefore, when conference time comes around, we create this chart designating the time slots for our parents to sign in and then our Room Parent puts these dates and times on the class Sign-Up Genius. Once all the parents have signed up, we write in each parent's/student's name on the box next to the time and we have this handy throughout our conferences so we are on-task with which parent is next and the order of our conferences! This is another great and simple tool we've employed to help us stay super organized!

There is nothing more satisfying than staying organized and it is especially essential for teachers in two-way dual language programs to stay on top of it and to stay organized! I hope you will find this post helpful! Please let me know if you have any questions about our schedules or the way we run our program! :)

Sight Word Games

An important part of reading foundational skills to to build students' fluency with sight words/high frequency words (palabras de uso frecuente!). This year, I am trying various different methods to get students more involved with the sight words - especially by playing weekly games to practice, practice and practice those sight words! I am also finding that by introducing the words early on students are already building their practice with reading Spanish syllables/practicing how to recognize and read Spanish letters/words with their correct sounds! I introduced these games first in my small guided reading group so that I could explain how to play. Now that they have played these three games, I can place the same type of games (but with different sight words) at their independent centers throughout the year!

 Here students spin the Spinner and then read the sight word out loud and then find it and color it!

Here students throw the dice, find the word that by that dice, read it out loud and then trace it! If they roll the number 6, they skip their turn!

 

Here students throw the dice, read the word out loud and then write it on a dry erase surface! There is also the option of using the worksheet that comes with the game, where students need to find the word and color it in!

You can find these sight word games in my "Sight Word Bundle in Spanish": https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sight-Word-Bundle-in-Spanish-2804366
 

Reflections on Year 1

I cannot believe how quickly time flies by (when you're having fun AND you're super busy!). Since my first year teaching (what!) has come to an end, I am left here reflecting over the last 9 months and pondering about the upcoming months and school year. When everyone said that your first year will fly by, it seemed like such an abstract statement since I had never experienced anything like this year before. But it did fly by and my, what an amazing journey it was, which I feel excited and privileged to have had.

As a first year teacher, who was also helping to launch a new dual language program at our school, I certainly felt an enormous amount of pressure to be successful and to provide my K students the most authentic, immersive language learning (and content learning, of course) experience possible! One of the most important things that I can say and reflect upon is how important it was for me to use the resources available (i.e., the internet & my colleagues!) to search for, find and adapt activities for learning that I could utilize. Using search engines to find Spanish poems (and being selective about which poems I believe would be the most beneficial), along with using sites such as Pinterest, I was able to gather ideas and implement them in the way I felt most appropriate. Reflecting on this I realize the importance of seeing ideas from seasoned educators and finding ways to adapt and implement them!

Although sometimes the pressure and stress felt overwhelming, these tools allowed me to realize (1) I am not alone and (2) there are SO many great ideas out there. I also decided that because I knew my kids best and what their needs were, I would need to take what I had learned as a Kindergarten student in Venezuela meshed with my academic experience in the U.S. and my personal family life experience growing up Latina in the U.S. to create an overview of how to teach literacy in Spanish and integrate it with science, social studies and mathematics. Coming into such an innovative and progressive school helped me in this journey. Our Kindergarten team teaches in thematic units, which I now realize is such a powerful way to teach all the standards and content, while not leaving out important subjects such as science and social studies. By integrating all the subjects to thematic units (which the English side teacher was also doing), the children were able to find fluidity and continuity between the two classes, the content and the learning experiences.

Finally, I've also realized how crucial it is for the English side and the Spanish side teacher to have a close working relationship, because I believe, the majority of the success of our program this year was based on that relationship. The other teacher and I would coordinate before every unit to discuss what we were each doing with what group of student (our morning group or our afternoon group), we would discuss everyday what we were doing/what we did with each group and how it went and we would make sure we didn't repeat any lessons (but rather, added on and provided students with different activities aimed at reaching the standards we were working on). I truly believe that this not only helped our sanity (so we were not repeating lessons and things of that nature), but it also demonstrated a coordination and teamwork model for the students, who undeniably saw how closely we both worked!

Overall, I am so grateful for the incredible first year I have had! I feel privileged to be at a school where our Principal allows (and actually encourages) teachers to be creative, innovative and authentic in their practice, while still adhering to standards and what needs to be covered/taught. I have learned a lot and continue to learn a lot and gather new ideas, and am excited for the road ahead as I enter into my second year of teaching Kindergarten!

Happy Summer Everyone!

Guided Reading in Spanish

Dual language programs across the board can be very different from school to school, district to district and state to state. Some dual language programs don't have guided reading groups in the Spanish classroom for grades as young as Kindergarten, however, I believe that both classrooms should run very similarly in the sense of the routines and the activities that the students engage in. I believe that both languages should have equal emphasis and importance, so as to not devalue or demote the significance of one language or culture over another. Furthermore, I think it's important to make sure that we are always stimulating and pushing our students forward, especially when there are such varying linguistic levels in a classroom (as is often seen in dual language settings!). Thus, in the dual language program we are building at Gator Run, we have guided reading center rotations during our learning centers. There are many different activities related to reading (and writing of course!) that happen during this 20 minute center, but I believe that time has been so instrumental in helping children gain linguistic confidence in their Spanish abilities as well as push students towards being able to read words, phrases and even sentences in Spanish. 

Here is my guided reading/teacher center table/area:

I painted my one table with Dry Erase paint so that students could write (and be able to see it better) when they came to me for this rotation - and the kids love it! Students come and begin by tracing their name (practicing handwriting) and/or sight words/sentences with dry erase markers while I make sure that the other groups are set and ready to begin! I also put out their book basket so that they can read the book if they finish tracing.

Here students are using whisper phones while reading their syllable words for the week during our guided reading groups. Students love these phones! They can hear themselves reading, which helps them recognize how it sounds when they read the word and it also allows me to lean in by each child and hear them read the text. Those books featured in the pictures are books from Venezuela, that I actually used also when I learned to read in Spanish back in the day! These books feature syllables and then words with those syllables and then some simple sentences at the bottom of each page. The book is simple, but that's how one learns to read in Spanish - by learning to read syllabically! We sound out the words syllable by syllable and then children practice reading the words themselves.

Here students are writing in their Spanish notebook during guided reading. I started Spanish notebooks around the middle of October. We use this notebook to respond to stories, work on our syllable words and to write words that we hear (sounding them out). This is an interactive notebook also, so sometimes, I might have something for the students to work on and then glue in their notebook that is related to our syllables/word work. I decided to use a Spanish notebook so that students can work on these skills (as well as handwriting!) hand in hand with reading since both are so closely related. The Spanish notebook is also differentiated by each reading group. That's another reason I decided to use the notebook, because I thought it could be a great differentiation tool and really work on the reading/writing skills each group needs and to document that progress throughout the year. 

 

During guided reading we also practice our sight words (palabras de uso frecuente)! Here, I was saying a word out loud and I had them write the word how they heard it (sounding it out). Then, I show the students the word so that they can see how the wrote it. The students enjoy writing the words and then waiting to see the "real" word on a star that I have them on and get so excited when they see that they've written it correctly or very close!

Guided reading in Kindergarten can include many different goals and activities to help children become readers and writers and it is no different in a dual language program on the side of the target language! 

Learning to Read & Write... in Spanish!

As I began the school year I reflected upon the ways in which I learned to read in Spanish as a young child. One of the many amazing things about the Spanish language is that it is a phonetic language and it is actually pretty easy to read! When I was younger I learned to read Spanish by learning about the syllables (ma, me, mi, mo, mu, pa, pe, pi, po, pu, and so on). Therefore, when imagining how to go about teaching Kindergarten children (of varying levels) how to start reading/recognizing words/sounds in Spanish, I came up with this plan:

1. Teach children the vowels (las vocales) and reinforce them throughout the year. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Begin teaching the more prominent syllable combinations and continuously move to other syllable combinations.

• Ma, me, mi, mo, mu
• pa, pe, pi, po, pu
• la, le, li, lo, lu
• sa, se, si, so, su
• ta, te, ti, to, tu
• na, ne, ni, no, nu
• ra, re, ri, ro, ru
• lla, lle, lli, llo, llu
• ba, be, bi, bo, bu
• ca, ce, ci, co, cu
• cha, che, chi, cho, chu
• da, de, di, do, du
• fa, fe, fi, fo, fu
• ha, he, hi, ho, hu
• ja, je, ji, jo, ju
• ka, ke, ki, ko, ku
• ña, ñe, ñi, ño, ñu
• que, qui
• rra, rre, rri, rro, rru
• va, ve, vi, vo, vu
• wa, we, wi, wo, wu
• xa, xe, xi, xo, xu
• ya, ye, yi, yo, yu
• za, ze, zi, zo, zu

3. As we learn our syllables, I also teach sight words in Spanish (palabras de uso frecuente) that can allow children to recognize/build short sentences. 

• "Yo veo un pajaro" (sight words: yo, veo, un + a "pa" syllable word we learned)

Our Kindergarteners also have a poetry book that we put poems/chants in weekly (in English with the English side teacher and/or in Spanish with me), and so I started creating sentences with repetition that aligned with our sight words and our syllables for the week. Here is the one I created for our "pa, pe, pi, po, pu" syllables:

The children put their poem in the notebook and accompanying pictures that match each part (pajaro, pelota, piña, pozo, puma/leche, lupa, lata, limon, loro). Since these sentences include sight words and syllable words, students can read these on their own and feel proud of what they know in Spanish! We also began our Sight Word folders this week, with 10 Spanish sight words:

Children take their folders home and practice the sight words. When they are ready to be tested, they bring the folder back, I test them, and if they know all of them, I will give them the next list and put it in their folders!

In addition, during our Center Rotations, I include at least one sight word practice center and for the Word Work center I include syllable work, which can include building/reading sentences from our poems/chants.

"Tira, Di, Traza/Escribe" (Roll, Say, Trace/Write) sight words

"Pescando" nuestras palabras de uso frecuente como pescaban los peregrinos/indigenas ("Fishing" for our sight words just like the pilgrims/Native Americans fished for their food)

Furthermore, in Kindergarten we have literacy workshops (Talleres de Alfabetizacion) where students get to choose their own learning! They have to pick something to do that will help them become better readers and writers. These are some of the activities my kids frequently choose:

• iPad learning games 
  
• Spanish alphabet puzzle
  
• QR code reader (with a binder I prepped filled with QR codes of Spanish books being read on a video)
   
• Reading Rods (from Learning Resources) where students build words using the Alfa-Libritos
   
• Building words/practicing syllables using magnet letters/cooking sheet 
  
• Using stamps for letters & words (and using picture stamps & labeling the pictures)
  
• Drawing pictures & labeling them 
  
• Reading to/with friends
  
• Reading in our classroom library
  
• Writing on the dry erase board
  

• Playing teacher (reading/writing on boards) 
  

I am so proud of all the progress my students have made and love seeing them so engaged in different activities! I strongly believe that children needs these opportunities in the classroom to not only progress academically, but also build their social skills!

Welcome!

Hi everyone:) Welcome to my Learning Bilingually blog! Bienvenidos!

I am so excited to be starting this blog and sharing with you my adventures as a dual language elementary teacher! This past summer 2015 I moved from New York City to South Florida (big change I know!) so that I could start my job at Gator Run Elementary. I was hired to be the Kindergarten Dual Language teacher, on the Spanish side, for their new dual language program! I am currently in my first year of teaching and really enjoying it while also continuously learning a lot about the intersection of primary education and the language learning process.

It might be a combination of first year teaching with teaching solely in Spanish to Kindergarteners, but I have been creating a lot of my materials for my lessons/my classroom (since our K team teaches through thematic units) and that's why I also decided to start my own teacherspayteachers site as well as chronicle my adventures in dual language through this blog!

I hope to be able to generate conversation about the importance of dual language and how we can continuously develop this conversation across the nation, but also help/inspire any other dual language educators who might be experiencing similar struggles and accomplishments!

Thank you & enjoy!