Spanish Reading for Kids: Printable Activity from Custom Literacy

One of the most exciting things about working on Spanish Playground is sharing innovative materials like the books from Custom Literacy. This new company creates beautiful printable books and e-books for Spanish learners and Spanish speakers. These books are designed to help children learn to read and are filled with Latino culture. They are for pre-K through second grade and are a wonderful addition to the growing library of Spanish language books published in the United States.

In these books, teacher and author Jessica García and award-winning illustrator Joan X. Vázquez capture essential childhood experiences with the characters of Pepe and Susi. The short sentences and beautiful art combine to effectively communicate the way children see identity, preferences, decisions, and their interactions with others. Children will identify with these characters and their perceptions, a key factor in understanding and enjoying literature.

At the moment, Custom Literacy has six high frequency words books available for beginning readers. These books use high frequency words in context and have a close text-to-illustration correspondence, so children can use the illustrations to help them understand the language. The stories also have a predictable pattern, repeating a key structure throughout the book.

Custom Literacy has generously shared one of their printable activities with Spanish Playground. This sentence building activity complements Libro 2, Las aventuras de Pepe, but can be used with or without the book. It focuses on the structure Yo soy + adjetivo/sustantivo.

Link to Spanish Reading Activity for Kids

Custom Literacy Sentence Building Activity – Libro 2, Las aventuras de Pepe

When children read the book before they do the activity, they are exposed to the language in the context of the story. The activity is a natural progression and reinforces the language and the skills children are acquiring from the book. The action of cutting out and ordering the words enhances learning, and of course kids love constructing the sentences.

If you do the activity without reading the story, you will want to create a context by describing yourself or having a puppet talk and use the same structure. Use simple sentences like those on the printable and be sure to use gestures and actions to make the meaning clear. Write your sentences and help your child read them. Then do the sentence building activity. Of course, if you read the story to your child, you can expand on the language using these suggestions.

Many thanks to Custom Literacy for sharing this activity and for the beautiful books they are creating for our children!