"Dieu a fait ceci / Dios hizo esto" is a French/Spanish bilingual book for children. The current volume is Level 1 intended for infants to toddlers. Their are four levels for each volume, graded according to age group. This juvenile non-fiction book for bilingual reading development is an educational tool rather than a story book. It includes single words and pairs of words for the ear training of infants as well as toddlers. The pictures help infants to associate sounds with symbols--images at first and ultimately words at the toddler level and beyond. Toddlers will be able to repeat words, word pairs, phrases, and brief sentences aided by the picture cues. They will gradually be able to read the words using the printed word as their cue. Color photos and illustrations were carefully selected to captivate the child's interest. Words and sentences were judiciously chosen and crafted to facilitate the learning or reading skills and second language skills for both age groups. Words are re-entered throughout the book to aid comprehension and to help the child feel a sense of accomplishment. With a systematic phonetic program in each volume of the bilingual books series, some words were chosen for the sound(s) they represent rather than their meaning. This volume presents images of the natural world around us and are of high interest to young children. The natural environment, earth, sky, water features, animals, flowers, fruits, vegetables, and a variety of types of people are included. The book teaches that "God made this." It is suggested that only one language be read at a time. Start with the child's first or "native" language for several reading sessions, then introduce the second language. At no time should the two languages be read during the same reading session. This volume should be of interest to French and Spanish speakers who want to teach their child(ren) those languages. In addition, speakers of English and other languages will find the book useful for teaching their child(ren) both French and Spanish. The books are ideal for day care centers, preschools, and elementary schools that offer or wish to include bilingual education or ESL in their educational programs. The books in the series present a thorough bilingual program with a wide range of age groups represented in the four age levels, infant through early elementary school, and in the number and variety of topics that include many of those typical of reading education programs. Whenever possible photos rather than illustrations are used to make the topics more meaningful and realistic to children. The reading level obviously and appropriately increases from one level to the next. In addition, the reading level from one volume (topic) to the next increases very slightly. In this way a toddler (level 2), for example, starting with volume 1 and continuing in volume number order for all or most volumes will be well-prepared to begin the series at the preschool level (level 3). These juvenile non-fiction bilingual books ideally would be presented to the child, at home or in an educatiional setting, as a collection or program rather than as a few random books in order to reap the greatest benefits from the carefully and pedagogically crafted series of bilingual books for children. The BISAC Category is JNF049200 Juvenile Nonfiction / Religious / Christian / Early Readers.
About the Author: John F. Wilhite, Ph. D., is a retired university professor of Spanish and Latin American culture with expertise in the teaching of Spanish and ESL. He has 35 years experience in writing and editing. Kym Anderson Wilhite, M.Ed., TESOL, has been teaching children at the high school and elementary levels for 30 years. She teaches both Spanish and ESL. Both authors recognize the need for second-lnaguage learning to begin as early as possible. And both believe that people must become bilingual and multilingual to function in our global and international world. They hope these books will help achieve these ends.