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Sunday, June 9, 2013

Spanish Preschool Curriculum Review: Monarca Language & {PRINTABLE}

If you have a 3- or 4-year-old child at home, then this summer is the perfect time to start preparing them for entering school and kindergarten. I want to emphasize once again, how important it is for children this age to either attend a preschool or be worked with at home to develop the skills they'll need when they enter kindergarten. I am reminded of a 2000 study by the department of education that showed that half of the Latino children starting kindergarten could not recognize all the letters of the alphabet, no surprise given that Latino kids are less likely to be enrolled in a preschool program than any other group.

I have 
written extensively about the importance of parents working with their children at home to teach them basic concepts such as letter and number recognition, shapes, colors, and more. You can find tons of bilingual resources here on MommyMaestra simply by searching for "preschool" in my sidebar.

And now I have a new one to add to the list! I recently had the opportunity to explore Monarca Language, an website with high-quality materials in Spanish for 3 and 4 year olds. The subscription-based site covers math logic and pre-literacy skills, as well as fine-motor coordination, reasoning and attention span.



With a subscription you can get access to the following themed printables and activities: Seasonal Materials, Reading & Writing Corner, Math Circle, and Coloring Activities. (The coloring pages are actually free to everyone.) And you don't have to worry that your kids will get bored with the same old worksheets because they are adding new materials every month. They even include phonetics instruction, in addition to letter recognition. I was impressed to read that 85% of the participating children finish the program reading and writing efficiently.

I really do like the easy and age-appropriate printables. They use many of the concepts my own children used when learning to recognize numbers and letters. Best of all, you can choose the level of difficulty and proceed at your child's own pace. All of them are in Spanish, with easy to understand directions in both English and Spanish for teachers and parents.


The fact that they include math is especially exciting as so often program focus on pre-literacy skills and forget or ignore early math skills. Really and truly, as I looked throughout this program I was very pleased to see that it covers all of the basic skills and concepts a child would learn in preschool.

I also love that there is no long-term commitment and you can cancel your subscription at any time. This makes me feel like Monarca Language is so confident in their materialsprintables, activities, and newsletter. You can even test it out with a one-month free trial.



FREE PRINTABLE

The kind people at Monarca Language have allowed me to share the following printable with MommyMaestra readers. It is part of their Seasonal Materials and features La Primavera: Animales de la Granja. Best suited for 3-year-olds. For more free printables from Monarca Language, click on the words "Monarca Language" in the section below this article.

If you already subscribe to Monarca, leave some feedback in the comments to help other readers decide if this is a program for them.

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Disclaimer: I was not compensated for this post, however, I did receive a one-month access to the site for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own.