Instructional Strategies Glossary
Teaching for Biliteracy is a flexible framework that takes advantage of a wide range of biliteracy strategies in order to support language, content, and literacy development in two languages. The Biliteracy Instructional Strategies Glossary describes a number of of biliteracy strategies. You can also download this PDF version: Biliteracy Instructional Strategies Glossary
General Teaching Resources
Graphic Organizers / Ayudas Gráficas
This website provides a variety of graphic organizers in Spanish. Graphic organizers are powerful tools that help students visually organize and classify information. The documents on this site can be downloaded as PDF files, and you can print and copy them freely for classroom use.
Resources about Spanish for Teachers
Instituto Cervantes
This non-profit organization offers Spanish classes for adults who want to learn Spanish. Classes are offered at different levels, from beginning to advanced, and the institute also offers special classes targeted to specific populations (including Spanish teachers), as well as classes that explore specific aspects of the Spanish language such as vocabulary or grammar. Instituto Cervantes has satellite offices in Albuquerque, Chicago, Boston, New York, and Seattle. Some of these locations have a library with collections of children’s literature in Spanish.
Para teclear los acentos a mano
This how-to sheet details the keystrokes to type accents using your keyboard.
Resources for Teaching Spanish as a Heritage Language
Kim Potowski’s Website
Kim Potowski is Associate Professor of Hispanic Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author of various books, articles, and chapters, and her work focuses on Spanish in the United States. This website has a variety of resources about teaching Spanish as a heritage language, including information on a university course on the topic.
Resource for teachers interested in continuing to develop their academic Spanish:
Desarrollo del Español para Maestros en Programas de Educación Bilingüe & CD
Authors: Lidia Morris and Luis A. Rosado
Resources for Spanish Materials
For Parents: Digital Apps in español:
Apps en Familia – Joan Ganz Cooney Center
Publishers, Importers, and Libraries for Spanish Literature
These webinars, by Heather Brooke Robertson-Devine of Books del Sur (see below), provides an overview of publishers and importers of Spanish texts in the United States.
American Reading
This publishing house offers Spanish assessment tools and Spanish libraries that include authentic books in Spanish that can be custom ordered by topics.
America Reads Spanish
This is the website of a campaign to increase the use and reading of Spanish in the United States. One useful feature of this website is the New Releases tab, which shows book covers and titles of new releases in Spanish for both children and adults. You can also read book reviews, access e-catalogs for several publishers of books in Spanish, and link to a database of Spanish publishers.
Books del Sur
The mission of this online bookstore is to bring books in Spanish from South America into the classrooms of Spanish-speaking students in the United States. You can find out more about the owner, Heather Brooke Roberston-Devine, in her article as WIDA’s August Featured Educator.
Instituto Cervantes
Some of the satellite offices of this organization have libraries with collections of children’s books in Spanish. Click here to see a more detailed description of this organization.
La Librería
This small bookstore in Los Angeles, CA opened in 2015 and was co-founded by two mothers who wanted to bring more books that were originally written in Spanish to children in the United States. This bookstore specializes in imported children’s literature from publishing houses in Latin America and Spain. You can read more about this company and get additional resources for where to find authentic children’s literature in Spanish in this article.
Lectura Books
This company is both publisher and distributor of bilingual books, focused on English Learners and parent involvement.
Let’s Read in Spanish
This small company was founded by three mothers from Argentina, Mexico and Spain who hand-selected high quality books from around the globe for their bookstore. Unfortunately, this company is closing, but they will continue online sales through February 28th. If you live in San Jose, CA, you can benefit from the 50% off items in their brick and mortar store that is also closing.
Lorito Books
This company is both a publisher and a distributor. They publish audiobook read-along sets in Spanish and distribute books for Mexican publishers of Spanish children’s literature.
Curated Collections of Spanish Literature:
Bibliographies, Lists, Book Reviews and Databases
Canal Lector
This website has a searchable database of authentic literature in Spanish. You can search by age, country of publication, genre and theme. Search results include rich descriptions of each book and allow you to view a few illustrations and the first few lines of text. The search fields are small and easy to miss, so look closely at the very top of the page to find them. The site also provides other resources and information to support its goal of promoting reading and literacy in the Hispanic world with a focus on children and young adults.
Latino Literacy Now
This organization awards the International Latino Book Award. A list of winning books for 2013 and 2014 is available for download. The award recognizes the achievement of Latino authors and includes both Spanish-language books and English books related to Latino culture. The list includes a wide range of genres and audiences, but there are several award categories for children’s literature.
Reforma
This is the website of the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking. Their newsletter includes sections with book reviews of children’s books and young adult books.
School Library Journal/ Libro por Libro
This is an archive of book reviews of Spanish language, bilingual or Latino-focused books published in the School Library Journal, which publishes six issues a year.
Tinta Fresca/ Todo sobre libros
This online magazine aims to promote Spanish language books that are available in the United States. It includes a list and descriptions of books in Spanish for children and young adults.
Children’s Music and Language-Play in Spanish
Mama Lisa’s World en español
This is a great source for an international collection of traditional children’s music in many languages, including Spanish. You can search for music by language or by continent/country. Results include the lyrics in the original language and a translation to assist in understanding what the song is about if you don’t speak or read the language. Many songs on the site link to an audio or video file of the song or melody.
El huevo de chocolate: trabalenguas para niños
A website with over 700 tongue twisters for children in Spanish. Working with tongue twisters is fun, and it’s a great way to practice pronunciation in a new language you are learning.
Subject-Specific Materials in Spanish
Ciencias en español
Visual Learning Systems publishes this collection of science units of study in Spanish that use videos, interactive graphics, animations, and images to support the delivery of science content. Collections in Spanish are available at three levels: primary (K-2), elementary (3-5) and middle/high school (6-12).
Math Vocabulary Lists and Cards
This site offers CCSS math vocabulary lists in Spanish by grade for 1st to 6th grade. You can also download a set of cards that can be used for a math word wall. Each word is represented on three cards: one has only the word, one has the word and a picture that represents the meaning, and one has the word, the picture, and a definition of the word. Lists and cards are also available in French (1st-5th grade) and Chinese (1st-3rd grade).
Resources for Spanish Literacy
El sistema Lexile en español
This is the Spanish language equivalent of The Lexile Framework for Reading. This page offers a database of Spanish language books categorized by topic and Lexile level. The database is free, but you need to login and sign a license agreement to download it. The page also links to a Spanish Lexile Analyzer that teachers can use to find the Lexile level for any book. This tool also free for educators, but you must register to access it.
Estudio de palabras en español/ Word Study in Spanish
This page, part of the Reading Recovery website, offers a 90 minute audio webcast session by Irma Trujillo that presents information about authentic Spanish word features. Session handouts are available for download, including a handy resource book that lays out a sequence for word study in Spanish that aligns with the internal structure of the Spanish language.
Reading Support for Spanish-Speaking Students
This narrated presentation explains how students learn to read in Spanish, and details the differences among English and Spanish that can impact reading development. The presentation aims to inform work with Spanish-speaking English Language Learners who are learning how to read in English, but the explanation of the features of Spanish are useful for any teacher who wants to understand Spanish phonology and orthography.
Writing Rubrics :
Beeman and Urow Rúbrica de la escritura emergente en español
Beeman and Urow English Emergent Writing Rubric
Oral Language Rubrics:
Documentación del lenguaje expresivo de los estudiantes bilingües
Sample Oral and Written Spanish Rubric Pk-2
On the Right
The buttons on the right contain a variety of different resources to support teachers, administrators, parents and students seeking to develop biliteracy. The resources found in this section range from book study guides and research articles to hands-on teacher made resources, and they will be updated frequently.
Last Updated June 22, 2015