The Best Gift for Spanish-Speaking Infants and Toddlers: An Award-Winning Book Collection

Knowing the importance of learning how to read, one of the best gifts for Spanish-speaking infants and toddlers this year is an award-winning book collection, like the Baby Talk Bilingual Board Collection from Lectura Books, and one that can’t go wrong during the holidays!

Along with board books being the being best size and material for youngsters that age, they are also a great way to teach babies about the world around them in both Spanish and English. They also help tremendously in teaching vocabulary and fun facts that get everyone in the family talking. The board book series is a helpful first-start in teaching parents how to read with their children and assists greatly in establishing a reading routine as a family.

The set includes five books from the topics below:

• My Family
• My Body
• Animals
• Insects
• Birds

The article “Reading Books to Babies” by the Kids’ Health organization states that hearing words assists in building a rich network in a baby’s brain. However, perhaps the biggest reason to read out loud is that it makes a connection between the things babies love most, and that’s being close to their parents and their voices, it says.

When parents read, children hear them using many different expressive sounds and emotions, which help greatly in fostering emotional and social development, the article states. Reading also invites babies to touch, point, look and answer questions — all of which assist in promoting thinking skills and social development. By learning words, recognizing pictures and imitating sounds, they are learning important language skills as well. Reading to babies is not only a way to inspire a love of books from infancy but also a terrific way to grow their vocabulary—first their understanding vocabulary and later their speaking vocabulary, it states.

Books for babies should be easy for them to manipulate and hold, says the article “The Importance of Reading to Babies and Infants.” Books in heavy cardboard (board books), plastic, cloth or even wood are popular and hold up well, it states.

Lectura Books publishes parent engagement curriculum for The Latino Family Literacy Project — a terrific parental involvement organization known to many schools throughout the country. Through its online webinars, The Project trains teachers on helping parents establish a reading routine using bilingual books. Research shows that a regular family reading time improves vocabulary, reading skills, and overall language development in both English and Spanish for not only the child but parents too. For more information, please contact Lectura Books or The Latino Family Literacy Project.