This page is designed for native Spanish speakers interested in leveraging their Spanish knowledge to learn to read in English more effectively. It's not a translated summary of our website, but instead, a dedicated resource to aid in using Spanish as a tool for learning to read English.
This English translation page is provided for English speaking teachers, tutors, and parents working with native Spanish speaking students.
Start with Spanish
It is easier to learn to read in Spanish first as there are very few exceptions in Spanish. The sounding out skills will then transfer to English. To learn to read in Spanish, start with the Spanish syllabary. The book La Pata Pita is a fun way to for a beginner to learn to read based on syllables, followed by the workbook Mi método de lectura. This method of syllabic phonics is especially suited for Romance languages such as Spanish.
Moving to English Phonics
Using a good phonics program makes learning to read in English easier. The book Libro Primario is a good English phonics program that has a side by side Spanish translation and of the words and sentences. The sounds are explained as they relate to Spanish sounds. These sound explanations, a portion of which is shown below, “Sounds From Libro Primario,” can be used with to help explain the sounds in any English phonics program.
Libro Primario was written in 1885 by Josefina Lindley de Corella. A few of the words in both Spanish and English are archaic but overall in is still very useful and usable today.
40L has created re-typed versions of Libro Primario for use today:
Original pages from Libro Primario are shown on the left below, and a sample AI generated picture from the with pictures version is shown to the right below.
Libro Primario is a great way to start to phonics teaching but the book does not teach all the phonics needed to sound out anything. It will need to be followed by a complete phonics program such as the books mentioned above or the books mentioned on our beginning reading page.
Balanced Literacy
Many schools do not teach phonics well and instead use balanced literacy. If your child has been sent home sight words or readers with levels from A to Z, your school is likely using balanced literacy instead of phonics. This causes many students to guess and need extra phonics instruction.
You can use one of the phonics programs listed above even with older students, or 40L’s free online syllables based phonics lessons designed for older children. They teach phonics to the 12th grade level. See our remedial readers page for more ideas and information.
“Across America, schools have been teaching reading with a method that doesn’t work very well.” Read and listen to the podcast series “Sold a Story” to understand more about this teaching method and its use. (Sold a Story has a Spanish version and an English version.)
Spanish as a Superpower
Many of the higher level words in English come from Latin, and many of these words of Latin origin have Spanish cognates. The more difficult the English word, the more likely it is to have a Spanish cognate.
The graph below shows the percentage of Spanish vs. Germanic (from Old English or German) cognates for the most common 5,000 words. The less common words have more cognates. As the next pictures show, simple Spanish words often have more complex synonyms, allowing students to unlock high level English words.
The Academic Word List (AWL) is a collection of 570 common English words that frequently appear in academic texts. These more difficult words are even more likely to be cognates—In fact, 76% of the AWL has a Spanish cognate!
The multi-syllablic words in Noah Webster’s Speller also showed this correlation, with an increase in the percentage of cognates as the number of syllables increased. In the Speller, 40% of 2-syllable words had Spanish cognates, while over 70% of 3-syllable words had cognates. Over 80% of the words with 4 or more syllables had a Spanish cognate.
Since Spanish is more regular than English, it may be helpful for native Spanish speakers to read more difficult passages in Spanish first—many of the more difficult words will have English cognates, especially in scientific fields. Longer and more difficult English words are more likely it have a Spanish cognate since many of the multi-syllable word in English come from Latin.
Spanish sound patterns can also help students learn the more difficult sound spelling patterns of English words of Latin origin. For example, the Spanish words “Mia” and “familia,” have the same pattern as the English words “cilia, myocardia, and hypothermia.” The Spanish words “mio” and “tio” follow the pattern of more advanced English words such as “cardio, scenario, and fiord.”
Spanish can be a powerful force for learning to read English. Cognates are especially powerful. Colorín Colorado has an easy to use cognate list. Colorín Colorado is one of the many additional links from Sold a Story’s APM in their section about helping your child learn to read.
40L volunteers hope this will help you use your superpower of Spanish for success!!
