Teaching Spanish to Kids with Stories

FabuLingua’s Learning Path

Where Kids develop mastery of each story

We are passionate about teaching Spanish to kids, but we go way beyond just reading stories. We have a proprietary method that encourages children on a Learning Path that leads to MASTERY of each story. This approach results in a powerful and highly effective way to teach Spanish to kids.

Each story has an in-story menu laid out as a path. You can see clearly where you are on the path, and which key activities you still need to complete inorder to master that story. Along the top of the path there are 4 story modes and along the bottom are 4 mini-games based on the story. They all lay in sequence along a gray path that turns purple as you progress.

Each mode that is completed unlocks a mini-game, and when you play that mini-game once, it in turn unlocks the next more challenging mode. Each mode is increasingly challenging and earns you increasing amounts of keys that you can use to buy valuable treasure chests in the Fabled Store.

Story mode page on ipad-effective language learning platform

The four modes on FabuLingua’s Learning Path

Magical Translations^® Mode

The First Step in Teaching Children Spanish

Where ‘invisible learning’ begins

On each page of our Comprehensible Stories your child will see only the Spanish text, but hear the Spanish and its rhythmic English translation.

This allows us to more easily begin teaching Spanish to kids because they understand the Spanish and this creates what is known as ‘Comprehensible Input’ which enables subconscious language acquisition! There’s a method behind this magic. Learn more here

Once the narrator has finished reading the text at the top of the page, ask your child to explore the page’s multiple interactions. They are fun and silly! Watch as the app begins teaching children Spanish words both through context and exploration.

What if my child already speaks Spanish? Go to the ‘Settings’ gear-shaped icon and switch the toggle to ‘Spanish Only’. Even if your child is already proficient in Spanish, encouraging them to enjoy daily storytime in Spanish will help them increase their vocabulary, their confidence and their fluency!

CopyCat Mode

Teaching Kids Spanish Pronunciation

Where speaking proficiency is developed

Kids record themselves imitating the native narrator.

Teaching Spanish to kids is easier when they’re teaching themselves!

In CopyCat mode, you listen carefully, then imitate the native narrator as you record. Pause recording and listen to the next phrase. Imitate again as you record. Once the whole page has been recorded in this way you’ll hear it played back. Listen to how closely you matched the narrator’s pronunciation. Did you like it? Give yourself a check mark and you can then start interacting with the characters on the page.

Remember, the best way to teach kids Spanish is when there’s a low Affective Filter. Without buzzers or any stressful forms of evaluation criteria, your child will feel relaxed, motivated to keep trying and inspired to imitate the narrator even more closely on the next page 💪

(Spoiler alert: voice recordings may lead to giggles!)

Spanish Only Mode

The next step in Teaching Spanish to Kids

Where they realize they understand

Ready to start flying solo and enjoying the story with no help?

The next step when teaching Spanish to kids is taking the training wheels off.

Your child has now been exposed to the story and games enough times that they can finally listen to the story in the ‘Spanish Only’ level and understand it!

They should be feeling pretty good about themselves… it’s pretty cool that they have learned so much that they can read the story on their own! (If they can’t quite understand it you may want them to re-do Magical Translations mode a few more times).

But what if there is still one word here or there that your child doesn't know? Fear not - at any level in the app you can touch any word and hear its syllabic breakdown (very important for Spanish pronunciation) and its translation. So you can pronounce and understand that word.

Read By Myself

Teaching Kids to Read Spanish on their Own

Where your child becomes the narrator

Yes, you’ve done it… you’ve finally mastered the story!

This is the final level for each story, and the last level to unlock on the journey to teaching Spanish to kids. By the time your child gets here, they’ll have gone through the story many times so they know it well, and they will have worked so much on their comprehension and pronunciation that they can now read it out loud by themselves … with no help! Watch them record themselves - and become the narrator!

Your child is on their way to becoming biliterate as well as bilingual! They should be so proud! The recordings from this level can be shared with grandparents or teachers!

This level is for older kids who are readers… although we’ve sometimes found that pre-readers who have done the previous levels many times, have actually memorized the story, and they are able to ‘read’ that particular story to you as a result! (Of course, it’s not real reading, but we salute their efforts nonetheless!)

Teaching Children Spanish with Games

FabuLingua’s Mini-Games

Where learning is extended and reinforced

Each time you complete a new mode on the Learning Path, you unlock a new mini-game that you need to play once to get to the next mode! To unlock all the mini-games for a story, you need to complete all modes in that story.

When kids get 4 perfect scores in a game, they ‘discover’ a treasure chest! (Psst… these treasure chests contain stickers for the Magic Sticker Book and FabuLingua’s iconic playing cards for our Card Battler Game!)

These mini-games are part of our unique teaching approach, they are extension exercises designed to consolidate, reinforce and extend what kids have learned in that particular story. Each mini-game focuses on a different language skill (comprehension, pronunciation, spelling and grammar).

These mini-games use the power of repetition in a fun way. So have your kids play these mini-games often to get that repetition and boost their language learning!

Did you know that thoughtful gamification can help teach Spanish to kids faster (and be more engaged in learning) than traditional methods of teaching Spanish to kids?

FabuLingua makes language learning a fun and magical experience so our little learners feel like it’s play time when they are learning a language. That way, they’ll remain fully immersed in the activity, which is the best way for a child to learn Spanish.

Matching Game

Where vocabulary is reinforced.

In this game, kids get to match a sticker from the story to its Spanish word.

Pre-readers can play this game too! Tell them to touch the word and it will be read out loud in Spanish! Now all they have to do is find the picture that matches the word.

Not sure what a specific sticker represents? Touch it to hear its English name.

Get a perfect score and earn a sticker for your Magic Sticker Book!

Each time you play there are new words from the story - but in a different order. So play often! Repetition is one of the keys to teaching Spanish to kids! And they’ll earn more stickers!

Articles Game

Where the correct article is reinforced

Quick, quick! Is it ‘el papalote’ or ‘la papalote’? Did you know that every noun in Spanish is either masculine or femine? And therefore its article is either ‘El’ or ‘La’ respectively.

In English, nouns have no gender, so identifying the gender of nouns in Spanish can be very tricky when teaching Spanish to kids that are native English speakers. Even proficient students who have been studying Spanish for years still struggle with this! It is important to master the genders of nouns because gender determines the form of many adjectives that describe it. (The more you master this, the more fluent you will sound in Spanish!)

If you lived in a Spanish speaking country you’d have loads of exposure to the correct article (and therefore gender) for every noun so you would learn this almost subconsciously. You would not be thinking about the grammatical rules for determining gender. You would just ‘know’.

As your child reads the FabuLingua stories and interacts with objects depicted on each page, they too will hear the correct articles for lots of nouns. Then, when they play ‘The Articles Game’, where they have to quickly guess the right article, they will subconsciously start to use their memory to make guesses.

Kids soon figure out that to be good at this game, they need to listen carefully to the stories more than once. And they realize they need to explore every object or interaction on each page, because that is where you’ll find a lot of secret clues for this game! (When they interact with objects on a page, they learn that new vocabulary, along with the correct article for it!)

Watch how this child subconsciously taps into what she read in the story and interactions to take some good guesses. It’s an exciting way to review vocabulary and the corresponding articles.

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Scrambled Syllables Game

Where syllabic breakdown is taught

Syllables are exceedingly important when teaching Spanish to Kids. Developing an understanding of the syllables that make up a word and is key for developing great pronunciation in Spanish!

In this game your child re-arranges syllables to construct words they have learned from the story. Playing this game repeatedly will mean your child becomes very familiar with the process of breaking down words into syllables, resulting in improved pronunciation! This game goes beyond helping with their speaking skills, however, it also helps with reading, writing and with retention of new vocabulary!

Need help? Tap the image to hear the word!

Scrambled Letters Game

Where spelling is taught

Spelling helps you become biliterate, and we have found that knowing how to spell helps cement a child’s rapidly growing vocabulary from our stories.

At FabuLingua we help you raise children who are not only bilingual, but biliterate as well! Spelling is an important part of that.

Think spelling is boring? Not anymore! We design games to take the boring, repetitive aspects of language learning and make them fun and exciting.

The Letter Scramble Game teaches spelling in a fun and tactile way - dragging the letters around the screen into the right spot is so satisfying! Using an additional sense, the sense of touch, to learn to spell ensures higher retention. And when your child gets 3/3 words correct, they will earn a sticker for their Magic Sticker Book!

Concerned your child doesn’t know how to speak Spanish, much less spell in Spanish? That’s okay - when you get an answer wrong, the game TEACHES you the correct spelling, helping children learn from their mistakes! The next time they come across that word in the game, they’ll be more likely to remember how to spell it. Turns out letting kids make mistakes is one of the most powerful ways to teach Spanish to kids!

We Know How to Teach Children Spanish

A Shark Tank-style competition run by language learning experts, academics and educators tested and heard from new language learning products around the world… and they selected FabuLingua as the best new technology for learning a new language!

We have a bunch of other awards from Kid Safe, Mom’s Choice, the Educational App Store and The EdTech Awards, all of which have tested our product and recognized its effectiveness.

Patent Cover for FabuLingua unique methodology

However, what we’re most proud of (and is by far the hardest to obtain!) is our recently awarded patent! After years of reviewing our methodology, the academic literature in second language acquisition and investigating competitors, the USPTO granted our founder and inventor, Leslie Omaña Begert, a patent on FabuLingua’s unique methodology!

This Utility Patent award is a true badge of honor for us, one that your child will certainly benefit from as they start their exciting language learning journey with FabuLingua!