Teach Pre-School Kids Spanish

The purpose of this article is to provide advice and guidance on teaching pre-school kids Spanish. It is well known that the earlier a child learns a foreign language then the more likely they are to succeed. Not only does it give the gift of bilingualism, it enhances cognitive development and confidence. Children who can speak two languages are more likely to excel in areas such as arithmetic, logic and problem solving and maths. nnThe Spanish lessons need not be lessons at all the language can be incorporated into everyday life. The secret is to keep it fun! Kids learn and retain much more when they are having a good time, something I personally don't remember having when I was being taught foreign languages at school. Fair enough, a good while ago now but my memories of the language lab bring me out in a cold sweat.nnLet's begin.nFlashcardsnAlways a great way to start. Little ones love lively colourful pictures, add in a good dose of human interaction and you have the secret..fun! As soon a s a child starts babbling is the best time to start. Begin by showing him or her the picture and say the corressponding word in Spanish, simple descriptive words will suffice. If this is done for around 10-15 minutes a day then it is a good idea to move onto the next step. Say the word relating to one of the flashcards and promp the little one to point to the card. I have used this method myself with my son and it works a treat.nnBaby Sign LanguagenThis is one of the techniques I found brought about a huge amount of progress and improved communication between myself and my son when he was well under 1 year old. I decided to use it specifically for learning Spanish. Begin with basic words such as 'sleep', 'hungry', 'thirsty', 'play', 'nap' etc. Soon you will be adding more signs to your repertoire and increasing your little one's Spanish vocabulary.nnSpanish SongsnAnother method is Spanish songs specifically for kids. There are many on the market which have a cd with an accompanying booklet with the words in English and Spanish. This method really is fun. In my early days of teaching my little one we had Spanish songs playing constantly. It did take a while to get a grip on the words, even longer to master fitting the words to the music but you will notice when your litlle one starts chatting, much of it will be in Spanish!nnNaming CardsnA good idea is to put up cards around your home, naming objects in Spanish. Use cards to clarify colours of objects. If you are a beginner as I was it also helps with your own learning.nnDVD'snDvd's are a great visual aid in teaching kids Spanish. There are many websites which offer bilingual dvd's of favourites such as Mickey Mouse, Bob The Builder and Pocoyo. Of course Dora The Explorer is a great example. In the higher price bracket there are titles such as Muzzy and Speekee. Both are fabulous with each new lesson building on the previous one. The characters a fun, engaging and colourful, everything kids need to learn anything.nnIdentify Learning StylesnIf your child is around 3 years of age then it is a good idea to identify his or her learning style or styles. This gives a good indication of which nethods and techniques to introduce for learning Spanish. For example my son just loves listening to and making music on his piano therefore I try to incorporate music into our Spanish sessions as much as possible, he retains more information this way an enjoys reciting what he has heard.