Teacher Resources

In most classrooms across the United States, foundational skills programs treat English and Spanish as entirely separate worlds—presenting their alphabets, sounds, and early literacy routines in isolation, as if the two languages share little common ground. Yet, the reality is that the Spanish and English alphabets are more alike than different, and the boundaries between them are far more porous than most curricula acknowledge. This disconnect leaves teachers with the daunting task of bridging these worlds on their own, often without resources that recognize or leverage the deep connections between the two languages.

 

This instructional resource was created to change that reality. Here, foundational skills are not siloed; instead, lessons are intentionally designed to make transparent both the similarities and the differences between the Spanish and English alphabets. Through a deliberate focus on oracy, paired literacy, and metalinguistic awareness, this program empowers teachers to guide students in comparing, contrasting, and connecting their languages from the very start. By weaving together playful exploration, critical reflection, and authentic linguistic comparison, we offer a powerful, research-driven approach that supports true biliteracy—making what has long been a heavy lift for teachers into an engaging, coherent, and transformative learning experience for every child.

 

In this program, you will find foundational skills lessons that invite students to play, sing, explore, and reflect in both Spanish and English. By weaving together oracy, paired literacy, and metalinguistic awareness, we honor the promise of biliteracy from the start—and empower every child to become a confident reader, writer, and thinker in two languages.

 

A hallmark of this program is its robust immersion into the alphabets of both Spanish and English from the very start. The first five weeks are dedicated to building oracy and metalinguistic skills, engaging students in playful, purposeful exploration of letter names and sounds through songs, chants, poems, and interactive activities. By focusing on oracy and metalanguage, students develop the vocabulary and confidence to talk about language, compare how letters look and sound, and begin to notice patterns and differences between Spanish and English. This early emphasis on oracy, oral language and alphabet knowledge lays a critical foundation for the weeks ahead, ensuring that students are not only familiar with the building blocks of both languages, but are also prepared to discuss, analyze, and make connections as they learn and apply them in reading and writing.

 

This foundational skills program is grounded in the research and ideology of Dr. Kathy Escamilla, whose work champions biliteracy from the start—the belief that children can and should develop literacy in two languages simultaneously, not sequentially.

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Escamilla’s research highlights the transformative power of paired literacy instruction, where Spanish and English literacy are developed side by side from the very beginning of schooling. Rather than delaying English until Spanish is mastered, or vice versa, students are immersed in both languages, building oracy—the ability to express themselves fluently and coherently—across linguistic boundaries and academic learning. This approach recognizes our students as simultaneous bilinguals, children who are acquiring two languages at once and whose brains are uniquely equipped to make connections between them.

 

Central to this vision is the development of metalanguage: the ability to talk about language, compare its features, and reflect on how it works. In a dual language classroom, students don’t just learn to read and write; they learn to compare, contrast, and transfer knowledge between Spanish and English. They sing songs, chant rhymes, and play with the letters in their names, building expressive language while noticing similarities and differences in sounds, letters, and words. This cross-linguistic awareness is not incidental—it is essential for deep, transferable literacy.