Friendly suggestions for helping your child practice Spanish at home: Provide your child with opportunities to practice

e speaking Spanish with native Spanish speakers by keeping in touch with their bilingual partner or any Spanish speaking friend during the weekend and during breaks (its up to parents to exchange phone numbers). Provide your child with educational Spanish resources by visiting the public library and practice reading Spanish or bilingual books. You might be surprised how well they read. *This will be a key component in their growth of Spanish reading development.

After reading a book in Spanish, ask your child questions in English or Spanish (if you are able to) about the setting (el escenario), the characters (los personajes), the main idea (la idea principal) and the beginning, middle and end (el principio, el medio y el final de la historia). They will probably feel more comfortable responding in English, but encourage them to use as much Spanish vocabulary from the book as possible. They will understand more than they will probably be able to express in Spanish, but just praise them and encourage them! Check-out Spanish audio books and music CDs from the public library or purchase from Scholastic Online through our class homepage to listen to with your child. Music is also a fun & extremely effective way to keep them motivated and to practice the language! When watching a familiar movie on DVD, see if its available in Spanish under language and play it with the Spanish subtitles.

Seorita Montoya

The following websites can be accessed through the Spring Branch ISD Homepage under Library Resources on the left side of the screen in small blue letters or by entering the website address in your browser: 1. Brain POPJr. Latinoamrica This site offers educational movies, games and quizzes in Spanish for science, social studies, language arts, math, technology, health, art & music. Click on Ingresar aqui at the top of the page to sign in: http://esp.brainpop.com password/contrasea: brainpop username/usario: springbranchisd_16

2. TumbleBooks This site provides wonderful audio and visual books in Spanish. Select Spanish as a language and sign in: http://www.tumblebooks.com/library/asp/spanish/home_tumblebooks.asp username/usario: springbranch password/ contrasea: books

3. EnciclopediaJuvenil This site is the Spanish version of Encyclopedia Britannica. It offers great resources including a Spanish-English dictionary, grammar games, vocabulary games, educational videos, science videos, social studies videos and lots of great reference information for research. http://spanish.eb.com/juvenil username/usario: springbranch password/ contrasea: libraries