How to use the program more effectively

 

Tips to learn Spanish and use this program more effectively

Make a routine where your child knows that it is time to play with Feliz and friends in Spanish, you can call it “Spanish time” or “Feliz time”

Daily routines help family life run more smoothly. They also help families enjoy more time together. Routines help children feel safe, develop life skills and build healthy habits. Routines help parents feel organized, reduce stress and find time for enjoyable activities.

Our core products includes 6 books. Don’t read all books at once. Choose one and do different activities.

• Let’s listen to Rojo the talking pen
• Let’s repeat the phrases and words that are in the book. Encourage your child to repeat the phrases or words.
• Let’s discover new sounds. At the end of each book is a vocabulary page. Choose one to three words, read the story and find the special word. Next time remember the word that you already know.
• Take the flash cards that refer to the book with the same topic and choose one to three words. Find the special words in the book and repeat.
• Let’s talk in Spanish, you can have turns, the talking pen can read one page, you can read aloud the same page, and your child can read aloud the same page. It will be fun to read in Spanish – it doesn’t need to be perfect. After a few times you and your child will become familiar with the sounds in Spanish.
• Let’s make a show – you can use the dialogue that is in the back of the books. Simply read the script aloud and act it out. That’s it. And then magic happens … ” they’re not just reading a story; they’re living it.”

Give your child your undivided attention. Turn off all electronic devices and make time to play and learn with your child without distraction.

Very young children have very short attention spans, so each activity should be short. Move from one activity to the next. This is the best way to keep them engaged; if you don’t, they’ll get restless.

Remember keep sessions short; you can start with 5 minutes and increase the time according to your child’s attention span. Feliz needs to rest, so don’t overdo it.

Keep it simple. Doing a little bit every day is way more effective than having an extremely long boring session.

Read, read, and read some more!

Children love listening to stories. Books are the best tool you have to learn a language. Reading aloud to your child is an important activity because it helps build vocabulary and stimulate their imagination and memory, leading to language development and better communication skills.

Read the phrases or words pointing to each word, so your child can see them and get familiar with the spelling.

Let your child pretend to read, or read the story book aloud to themselves or to others. After you read, encourage your child to repeat the phrases or words using the puppets as many times as they want.

Children often like to hear the same story over and over. They are learning language in small pieces, not all at once. Each time a story is read, they understand a little bit more. Repetition of stories improves vocabulary and memory skills.

Try to read in Spanish daily or every other day.

Focus on one book at a time.

Read and talk with the characters.

If your child is already reading in English, then you and your child can take turns reading. I read to you, and you read to me. If your child wants to read by themselves in Spanish that’s ok, so listen the story and be part of the audience. Kids will enjoy this special time with their parents.

By making reading enjoyable children are more likely to learn and retain information and want to continue reading.

Talk, talk, and talk some more!

When children talk in Spanish, they reinforce what they’ve learned. They can talk via the puppets using the dialogue in the back of the books in Spanish. Playing with the puppets will stimulate their imagination and memory leading to language development. Think back when you first learned to talk, imitating the sound and repetition is the key.

Learning a new language is fun especially when you start using Spanish words and phrases.

Try to use the phrase or words that you know in Spanish as often as you can. Speak out loud! It is best to introduce new vocabulary in small quantities. Introduce a few new Spanish words and then when your child is familiar with them, introduce a few more.

Your child is going to learn Spanish the same way that you learned English – by speaking it!

Act

Children love to role-play and act out stories. Acting out the stories during or after you read increases vocabulary and they get more confident talking in Spanish. You can use different voices for having fun.

“Be your child’s biggest fun”

Listen

The Talking pen is a tool for sounding out and pronouncing words. Be part of the conversation listen and speak aloud. Repeat the words aloud!

Have fun and play

Make it fun. This is huge. In fact I would say it’s the most important factor, because it goes straight to motivation: making it fun gives you a reason to do it every day and it removes reasons (boredom, difficulty) not to do it.

Kids are more willing to learn when they are having fun. Learning while you are playing is the best way to learn.

Children are always discovering new things, but learning a new language is a uniquely rewarding experience at any age.

Learning a language together as a family helps build a stronger relationship and provides a unifying activity which doesn’t require you to drive your kids anywhere and doesn’t make it necessary to be in 10 places at once. Starting this process early with your child or children provides your family with an activity and an experience it can return to and grow with over the years.

You will find new and even unique uses, opportunities and ideas open up as you adapt your language-learning process to your and your child’s needs and aspirations. Starting now means the possibilities are wide open!

Play a game with the flash cards – Start with just a few cards and add more over time. Lay them out English side up and see if you know the Spanish word. Turn the card over after you’ve sounded it out to check if you remembered correctly. Keep the card if you are correct and at the end, the winner is the person that has the most cards.

Take care of Feliz and friends and have a special place in your house so they can rest when your child is not playing in Spanish with them.