"My First Book of Spanish Words"

“My First Book of Spanish Words” (July 1, 2009) is geared toward Preschool through second graders (as noted on the back cover). It is authored by Katy R. Kudela with translations by Translations.com.

            As the title implies, the book presents readers with a number of English words with their Spanish counterpart and pronunciation. There are various sections, and each section features a two-page photo spread with multiple English and Spanish words relating to the topic.

            For anyone who has taken a Spanish course, the words in this book will seem old hat. However, it is a very nice teaching tool for young kids. The pictures, which are photos and not drawings or paintings, are very clear. You, as an educator, parent, grandparent, older sibling, babysitter, etc., will have no problem pointing at a picture and know the child knows which picture or object you’re pointing at. This book would also be a great teaching tool for anyone looking to begin learning a new language. It is not an in-depth book, but the pronunciations are easy to understand.

            For anyone looking for an advanced book on Spanish words, this is not your book. However, I believe that this would be a wonderful book for educators to have in their classrooms, whether as a language tie-in to a cultural unit or if you work in an English Language Learners (ELL) classroom where the language most often heard besides English is Spanish.

            This book is a nice teaching tool, but again, it is not in-depth. Additionally, the book does not go into the vowel sounds of the Spanish language, nor does it explain their special alphabet characters (like the double ll or the ñ, the n with the tilde mark over the top).