March 16, 2020

How To Improve Your Spanish By Reading Aloud

As a non-native Spanish speaker, I needed to make sure that my daughter was exposed to a lot of Spanish language. Since we don’t have regular contact with any native Spanish speakers and our community language is English, I’m one of her only sources of Spanish.

That felt like a lot of pressure in the beginning! My Spanish was so basic and I knew that I was making grammatical errors left and right. I’d be looking up words constantly and had no idea if I was saying the right things.

I read online about people using TV shows and flash cards, but I knew that I needed something that would really develop my daughter’s language skills – and mine, too!

I turned to reading aloud as the primary way that my daughter would hear me speaking grammatically correct Spanish with her.

At first I was only able to read simple books out loud. As I got more confident and read them over and over again, I was able to gain better pronunciation, read with more expression and eventually, incorporate much of the vocabulary and phrases into my Spanish repertoire.

Reading aloud not only helps your child to enjoy and understand Spanish, but it can help you, too!

For some great starter Spanish books, check out these posts:

An Awesome Spanish Picture Book To Use Right Now

See What Makes These Interactive Spanish Books Great!

Table of Contents

Read Aloud Benefits For The Parent:

1. Build Muscle Memory

When you say a word out loud your mouth is working to create muscle memory. The more times that you say a word aloud, the more muscle memory you’re building, making it easier for you to pronounce the word in the future.

This is a crucial practice for new language speakers! When you get used to speaking out loud in the target language, it develops your flow of oral language and speaking skills. Repeated readings are one of the best ways that you can build those skills!

2. Memorizing New Vocabulary

New language learners are always working to develop new vocabulary. I am still learning new vocabulary, even after practicing Spanish with my daughter for 5 years now!

So many websites and educational apps push flashcards as a way to memorize vocabulary. While that can work, I’ve always found that memorizing vocabulary in context is the best way to learn words that are meaningful to your language development.

Research shows that visually reading a word, speaking it out loud and hearing yourself say it creates an experience that is memorable for you. Studies show that this is the most effective way to memorize new vocabulary and store it in your long-term memory (1).

When you read a book out loud, you are much more likely to commit that vocabulary to memory. Reading a book out loud multiple times is an amazing way to learn and memorize new Spanish vocabulary in context!

If you’re not at a point in your Spanish language skills where you are able to read aloud to your child, check out these online books with audio to help you out!

How To Use These Epic Online Spanish Books For Beginners

How To Improve Your Language Skills With This Interesting Experiment

Read Aloud Benefits For The Child:

1. Exposure To Diverse Vocabulary

Children learn a new language through acquisition, hearing it and interacting with it. This is one of the main reasons why TV isn’t the best way to learn a new language, because it’s passive language listening and not interactive.

The more variety of language that children hear, the better. When you’re talking to your child, you tend to use the same vocabulary each day. If you’re a non-native speaker like me, you have an even smaller Spanish vocabulary than your main language.

Picture books have 50% more vocabulary that everyday speech and TV shows, making them an amazing resource for language learning (2)! By reading out loud, you’re exposing your child to more quality language and diversity of language than just by talking to them.

2. 600,000 Words!

Listening to books read aloud, in any language, has a host of benefits for literacy, language acquisition and phonological awareness skills. Read alouds are one of the top ways that you can promote literacy in your home!

The more words that a child is exposed to increases their ability to develop that language. Reading 3 picture books a day in the target language will expose them to over 600,000 words a year (3)!

As a non-native Spanish speaker, I can’t pass up the opportunity to have my daughter hear 600,000 Spanish words in a year, in context and in an engaging way. The benefits for her are amazing and can only help her language skills grow.