How do i encourage my preschooler's natural interest in language?

Question

my four-yr-old has recently taken to speaking "spanish." it's her own version of it, and she's pretty consistent with the "words" she makes up and what they mean. i'd like to find ways to encourage her interest in this. but we don't speak spanish at all, we know no one who does, her daycare doesn't do languages and neither will her preschool this fall. we live in the northern midwest...there's not a big latino population here that she could even get exposure to this through. getting her a tutor is out of the question (it's too expensive and she's only four anyway). we don't have cable, so only about 4 channels come in on the tv, although we do have the usual cd, vcr & dvd players.

anyone have any ideas that would be age-specific for learning a little spanish? we've gotten some books out of the library, but i don't speak it so am at a loss on many words & their pronunciations. i'm not expecting her to become an expert with this, i just want to help her learn something she finds neat.

Answer 1

Ah!  Our son is that way too...but my husband grew up in Arizona and Ca. so he knows some spanish or at least can figure it out.  A bonus. I'm not great with languages.

Check your local library for cd's with spanish songs, DVD's that teach spanish or one that your child is familiar with and has been translated.  Diego and Dora does a bit with spanish as well.

Get adult cassette for spanish for yourself so you can get the jist of the pronunciation.  

Teaching the numbers is pretty easy.  There are children's cd's with songs for numbers and months in spanish...It might be Barney if I remember correctly.

LeapFrog has quite a few spanish toys and games.

Really... why not use this as a mommy/child time and learn it together.  Not only will both of you benefit from having a little of a different language but your child will see that learning doesn't ever "stop".  We as adults are still learning.  That's something we want engrained in our children early on is the longing to be life-long learners.

Consider sign language as well...they pick it up very early and quickly...I like the DVDs called Signing Time.  You can probably get them at your local library.  Learning a bit of sign language is a great kinethestic way of learning for your child but what I love about it most is that I don't need to verbalize a direction...especially if I'm "at my wits end" with a child.  If I can keep my mouth shut then the tone of voice they may come out won't effect the child.  :-)  And we know that tone of voice gets through to the child before the words do.

Have fun!