Ever wonder what you can do to support and help your students that already speak Spanish develop their more advanced reading skills in Spanish?
One thing I use in class are short (two page) reading comprehension texts with questions. I really like the Santillana “Vacation” workbooks for this. This is one of them:
One thing I’m trying this year is having them read a book in Spanish at home. I think this is a wonderful way to have students develop their vocabulary and read more fluently in Spanish. Every week they will fill in a reading diary that includes an activity they have to do based on what they read. These activities are nor reading comprehension questions, they are grammar related. See some below:
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¡Hola! These past weeks I have been working on new series of books that I hope will help children read and practice vocabulary words in Spanish.
The first of these books is called “Urix y los objetos.” It is about Urix (one of my alien creatures) and classroom objects. This book comes from far back (1992!) and I finally decided to publish it digitally. This is the cover:
What is really fun about this book is that Urix eats a classroom object and the child has to guess what the alien ate then the next page tells you.
Some of the pages are really funny:
And at the end of the book, Urix invites kids to try and remember all the objects he tried to eat. This provides one more opportunity for children to practice the words.
Purchase options:
You can buy with Paypal and receive a PDF via email ( allow 24 hours):
Digital Book: Urix y los objetos
$3.99
You can also get a Kindle Digital version at Amazon* right HERE, or an immediate file through Teachers Pay Teachers HERE.
I plan to continue creating 4 or 5 books in this series that will touch on other useful vocabulary with other creatures! So come back soon!
¡Muchas Gracias!
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This series can be used with any student starting around fourth grade, or students that have done some reading in Spanish (words and sentences) and have a basic understanding of its phonics. It is also great for Heritage learners! (Students that already speak Spanish but do not have much practice reading and writing.)
This is the cover:
There are 7 texts or readings in Level 1 that are short, 6 to 12 sentences long. They cover basic vocabulary and topics taught in Spanish classes like: description with colors and adjectives, sentences in simple present using regular verbs, sentences using gustar, the verb “ir” (to go) and “tener”(to have) in third person, the weather and places in the neighborhood. As time goes on I will develop more series covering other topics.
Each reading has the reading in color and black and white:
I also created a Topic Guide of the grammatical content of the readings. It can help you find a text related to what you are covering in class and use it to complement any unit. By the way, SRC 1A 1 means: Spanish Reading Comprehension Level 1 Series A Reading 1.
There are 7 texts or readings in Level 2 that are short, 17 to 25 sentences long. They cover basic vocabulary and topics taught in Spanish classes like: the verb to go in present, as going to / future with other verbs, the past tense (pretérito), descriptions of animals with riddles, the present progressive (continuous) and vocabulary like colors, numbers, emotions, grades, objects and places in the school, etc. As time goes on I will develop more series covering other topics.
This is the cover:
Each reading has the reading in color, in B & W and a projection version:
It also comes with a projection version in color:
Here is the Topic Guide with the grammatical content of the readings:
I have been working on a various Spanish Reading Comprehension materials. I have just completed Level 1 , Series A. This is the first level of Reading Comprehension. It can be used with any student starting around fourth grade, or students that have done some reading in Spanish (words and sentences) and have a basic understanding of its phonics. It is also great for Heritage learners! (Students that already speak Spanish but do not have much practice reading and writing.)
This is the cover:
There are 7 texts or readings in Level 1 that are short, 6 to 12 sentences long. They cover basic vocabulary and topics taught in Spanish classes like: description with colors and adjectives, sentences in simple present using regular verbs, sentences using gustar, the verb “ir” (to go) and “tener”(to have) in third person, the weather and places in the neighborhood. As time goes on I will develop more series covering other topics.
Each reading has the reading in color, in B & W and a projection version:
I also created a Topic Guide of the grammatical content of the readings. It can help you find a text related to what you are covering in class and use it to complement any unit! I dreamed of this possibility! ^ ^
My idea is to create each reading and sell it as an individual product too. So far I have only created this Series A of 7 readings as a product. You can see and purchase it HERE. Come back soon for the individual product links.
Beginner Spanish Readers: These are for students that are learning the sounds of the letters and their combinations in Spanish. When I teach my students (learning Spanish as a second language) how to read in Spanish, I start in Third Grade. I believe that it is a good idea for them to develop their first language reading and comprehension skills first.
I have created books based on phonics and I am currently working on reading comprehension material. This school year (2023-24,) I plan to create small reading packets based on the phonics books I’ve created and make them available in the Teachers Pay teachers (TPT) platform.
For example, this is one of my phonics lessons. This is the introduction of letter g and its basic sound.
How do I teach with this?
Page 1:
First I go over every consonant-vowel combination and students repeat after me.
Students read with me the syllables in the ovals.
Students Repeat the words at the bottom after me.
Page 2:
I call on every student to read the words on one of the columns. They can check the pronunciation on the first page if necessary.
I ask students to pick a sentence to read. They can pick the one they prefer.
I go over the meaning of the sentences. My heritage learners love to translate them.
You can see how I teach this in the following video. I created this video for my students during the COVID pandemic. It does not show the student part…
These are phonics books I’ve created:
Lectura Inicial, Beginning Spanish Readers. This set of three books I currently use with my third, fourth and fifth grade students. They cover every sound in the Spanish language. The focus is on pronunciation and fluency. The texts increase size by the third book.
This reader was inspired by Dr. Seuss’s Hop on Pop. Seeing how much my son enjoyed this book made me want an equivalent in Spanish. This book covers basic sounds and has some drawing/coloring activities included. It is a LOT of fun!
Spanish Learning Resources 