If you feel your child is ready to tackle Spanish, but you can't afford costly lessons, you may want to look into free Spanish lessons for children.
Types of Free Spanish Lessons for Children
Spanish Speaking Friend or Relative
If you know someone who speaks Spanish, they may be more than happy to share their knowledge with your family. Weekly lessons should be reinforced by speaking any words or phrases learned during the week. For example, if your child is taught that gato means cat, then you should have your child refer to the family cat as gato for the week. You may also be able to trade lessons with a Spanish teacher. Perhaps you are an excellent seamstress. You may be able to find a native Spanish speaker who would be willing to teach your family Spanish in exchange for you teaching her about sewing.
Community Programs
Many libraries offer wonderful programs for families. In addition to free classes, libraries often have materials on various languages that can be checked out. Free Spanish lessons for children can consist of material checked out from the library, including audio tapes, lesson books and stories. Many libraries cover programs that might be cost-prohibitive for families to purchase on their own, such as Rosetta Stone.
If your children are a bit older, then they will likely receive some Spanish lessons in school or have the ability to take Spanish classes. It can be fun to learn alongside your child in these cases, and this will also help you to reinforce what the student is already learning.
Television Programs
Today's television programming for kids is educational. Cable shows such as "Dora the Explorer" help kids learn Spanish that can used for everyday living, while presenting the information in a fun way. "Go Diego Go!" is a spin-off show based on Dora. If your family does not subscribe to cable networks, many local PBS stations carry "Maya and Miguel", which is a show with a distinct Latin flavor that will help kids pick up Spanish words.
Online Spanish Lessons
One of the best resources for free Spanish lessons for children are online websites. Lessons consist of everything from interactive games to words to tests to see how much you know. Here are a few of the better online Spanish sites:
- 123 Teach Me offers some really exciting lessons. Although all of the lessons aren't specifically aimed at children, they are perfect for older children. The site offers a variety of lesson types, from lessons for beginning Spanish speakers to lessons that focus on conversational Spanish. The kids' section offers info on numbers, alphabet, colors and has drag-and-match games.
- Learn 4 Good has video based lessons that will help kids learn complete sentences in Spanish.
- Spanish Made Easy will help parents teach their kids Spanish in a simple and straightforward manner. Get free lessons on the basics of Spanish, grammar and basic phrases. The focus is more on conversational Spanish, which can be a great place to start with kids.
- Spanish Tongue Twisters is a fun site that offers tongue twisters in Spanish. Saying the tongue twisting phrases over and over will help your child with pronunciation.
- Translator Alligator is brought to you by FunBrain and offers the opportunity to take quizzes on Spanish words and phrases. Choose the level, language and type of word. Choose from basic words, words from school, words from around the house, traveling, numbers and months, animals, people words and food words.
Start Learning Now
It's never too early to start teaching your children a new language, and Spanish is one of the easiest to learn. Give one of these sites a try and find out just how fun it can be.
