There are a lot of books that are out there in Spanish or in both English and Spanish for children. I am not a huge fan of most of them given the age range and demographics of the students that I teach. I like stories with limited text and those that let the pictures tell a lot of the story while teaching a few concrete vocabulary words or phrases.
Linda Pavonetti, Ed. D. from Oakland University came up with criteria for evaluating alphabet books for children in 2004. I love a lot of her reasoning and use it as a partial criteria for evaluating books to use in my classroom:
A good alphabet book (or book for young readers learning another language):
1. Has only one or two objects/page
• We don’t want the idea too complex—either visually or conceptually.
I like this idea in the sense that students learning another language will rely heavily on the pictures to make meaning of what is happening in the story. If there are too many things going on in the picture, students may find it difficult to pinpoint what is being described in the text.
2. Has easily identifiable pictures
• The illustrations should be within the child’s scope of understanding. Not
too complex, but ideas that stretch the child’s learning. To put this is
Vygotskyian terminology, within the child’s ZPD.
Story pictures should represent clearly what the story is trying to tell.
3. Has meaningful pictures
• Young children are not interested in items that might be interesting to or easily identifiable by older children.
Similarly, many books in Spanish include cultural references that may not make sense to students who are not from that culture.
I also have found the best and most enjoyable books also include:
4. Rhyme: Rhyme makes things easier to remember. It also encourages students to predict what is going is going to be read next. I love reading a story and having students shout out the next word because they figured it out with rhyme. Susan Middleton Elya is an author who incorporates rhyme into her books.
5. Repetition: The more students are exposed to a given word or phrase, the more they are likely to retain it. I mentioned in a previous post a book that I really enjoy a book called Fiesta by Ginger Foglesong Guy because of her repetition of the phrase "¿Qué más?" on every page in the book. Again, this makes the story predictable and accessible to young readers.
