Alma Flor Ada

El camino de tu risa
El camino de tu risa

Dis­cover the power of music and poetry to build lit­er­acy! Infuse cul­ture into your cur­ricu­lum with this indis­pen­si­ble col­lec­tion of poetry and songs in Span­ish. This pro­gram is an excel­lent vehi­cle for devel­op­ing phone­mic aware­ness and sup­port­ing lan­guage acqui­si­tion, basic foun­da­tions for read­ing success.

The musi­cal com­pi­la­tions include tra­di­tional folk­lore, selected works by a wide range of Latin Amer­i­can authors, and orig­i­nal mate­r­ial writ­ten by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Cam­poy. All of the songs are arranged and sung by Suni Paz, and many are her orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions. The books con­tain mag­nif­i­cent color illus­tra­tions by Ulises Wensell.

The impor­tance of songs in the class­room can­not be overly empha­sized. Songs are a vehi­cle for both teach­ers and stu­dents to develop flu­ency in the lan­guage, improve pro­nun­ci­a­tion and into­na­tion, build vocab­u­lary, and develop their under­stand­ing of His­panic cul­ture. Learn­ing the tra­di­tional folk­lore cher­ished by fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties will strengthen Latino children’s sense of iden­tity; for English-speakers learn­ing Span­ish, songs and folk­lore will deepen their appre­ci­a­tion of the Span­ish language.

Each of the accom­pa­ny­ing books includes the cor­re­spond­ing lyrics for all of the songs. All of these songs and poems can be used from kinder­garten to grade six for oral lan­guage devel­op­ment and cul­tural enrich­ment. The first five com­pi­la­tions are par­tic­u­larly suited for help­ing develop spe­cific lit­er­acy skills, as indi­cated. The last five sup­port sus­tained lan­guage devel­op­ment, a deep­ened appre­ci­a­tion for lit­er­a­ture, and an ongo­ing love for inde­pen­dent reading.