The following is a sponsored book post in collaboration with Teacher's Discovery. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
One of the most popular questions I get from readers is: Where can I find new readers for my kids or students?
Slowly I've started collecting quite a few series for those of you with young beginning readers in elementary grades. But I've been missing readers designed for older students. So when Teacher's Discovery reached out to me and asked if I would take a look and share their new
Enhanced Reader Series, I agreed to take a look and see if they are a good fit.
They totally are.
I received three of the books in their Level 1 series:
¡SÃ, yo puedo!,
El intercambio, and
Los novios.
¡SÃ, yo puedo! follows the story of Mario and his struggle to get good grades. The book introduces his friends - Carmen, Eric, and Cristina - a cast of characters that also appear in the other two books. Three of them have been friends since kindergarten.
Los novios is the story of Eric and Carmen's romance. I know it sounds a little sappy, but based on my own kids, I would bet that most teenagers will eat it up! And so the language learning is made a little easier. Ha!
And finally,
El intercambio tells the story of Carmen's opportunity to travel in Mexico and learn about the history and culture of the area.
Aside from the subject matter, what makes these books best geared for older students is the approach, design, and use of technology (see more below). Also, at the end of each book, there is a comprehensive glossary with all the words used in the book. They've made it super easy for the reader to understand the material.
Story Vignettes
The chapters are perfect in length and content. I think the longest one I've seen is five pages. The pages are not text-heavy, either. Each chapter is a short story - a moment, really, in the lives of the characters and the scenes are focused on helping the reader build their vocabulary and reinforce concepts. There is just enough repetition of words to help the reader master their understanding. And at the end of each chapter, there are 10 questions for reading comprehension and critical thinking.
Everything is in Spanish.
QR codes
This is probably the most amazing part of these books. Most of the chapters contain a QR code* (or several) that introduce characters and/or give you, the reader, a little more background information. Some are dialogue scenes straight from the chapter. For example, in the first chapter of
¡SÃ, yo puedo!, there are QR codes that lead to videos about each character. I discovered that Mario enjoys painting, playing the piano and chess.
*You can use any (free) QR code reader app on your phone. You can also use Snapchat to scan it! What?!? I know.
Full-Chapter Audio
There is also a QR code at the end of each chapter that takes you to a complete audio recording of that chapter. This is great for learning proper pronunciation, as well as to practice listening to Spanish in real-time. I love that the publisher uses voice actors to read the story aloud, theater-style.
Overall, I believe that these are just fantastic teaching tools for the Spanish classroom. They are fun, engaging, and really facilitate learning. They can be used as independent reading, homework assignments, lessons for substitute teachers, class read alouds, and so much more.
