Monday, May 5, 2014

About Levels and Ratings

Nearly every post will be tagged with the level of difficulty and age level, to help you find resources best for your child.  You can find the tags at the bottom of the post.  Post with multiple resources at different levels will be tagged with all levels included.

Level of Difficulty
In some cases I may tag/label a post or resource by levels.  These are made up entirely by me and while it's  tempting to call them beginning, intermediate, and advanced, this is really just varying stages of beginning, as I share very few truely "advanced" stage resources here.  This is not based on age.

Level 1 resources and activities can be used with kids that have no prior knowledge of Spanish.  These are things that help introduce concepts and vocabulary for the first time.  They are usually translated, or are so obvious from context that they require no prior knowledge.

Level 2
Level 2 resources and activities are still pretty basic.  Very little prior knowledge is needed.   Videos,  songs, and games which use Spanish without translation, but which a child could understand a lot of  through context or pictures, would be in this level.  

Level 3
Level 3 resources require more prior knowledge.  Videos at this level are usually entirely in Spanish, and may not be able to be entirely understood just through visuals.  Games may be entirely in Spanish with no translation.  These resources may require quite a bit more prior knowledge for a child to use and understand on their own, and may require a Spanish speaking parent or teacher's help.


Age Level
Age level is based loosely on what kids like at various ages, and are ready for. Age Level may assume education level (ie, preschool level items will not require reading, while late elementary, middle school, etc. may).   However, age is not connected to Spanish skill level.  So, there might be some preschool level items which are still at Level 3 as they may require some Spanish vocabulary knowledge, or some high school level stuff at Level 1 (requiring no previous knowledge).

Baby

Preschool

Early Elementary

Late Elementary

Middle School

High School



About Learning Spanish With Kids

I am only fluent in one language--English.  I wish that weren't the case.  I speak Spanish and ASL sign language just well enough to stumble through a very basic conversation with a patient native speaker.  Yet even with my poor amount of skill I've found what I know of these other languages useful.  When the only restaurant we could find open Christmas eve was a Taqueria with a waitress that spoke less English than we spoke Spanish, we got by.  When my dad's roommate at the nursing home was a man that only spoke Spanish, I was able communicate at least a little.  Moments like these show me what a gift a second language is.

And the best time to learn a second language is when you are still young...so I am trying to teach my Children Spanish (and sign) even though I'm still only learning myself.  I'm learning with them, and I want to share what I learn and find helpful in the process here with you.