Book Review: My First Book of French Words by Katy Kudela from Capstone Press

Capstone Press sent me a great learning book for me to review :My First Book of French Words. The reading level is Grades 1-2, but the interest level is really toddler to Grade 4!

The book is really great in that it takes pictures and shows the English word, it's French version, AND the phonetic sound of the French word. There are different sections that combine linked words- ie. family members, body, clothes, toys, bedroom, kitchen, food, colors, numbers. This is really helpful to learn certain related words together, BEFORE moving on to another section/more words.

My mother has always sang French lullabies to my daughter, and I have a couple of French song cds that she has always been calmed by, so hearing French is normal to her.

We started with the numbers and she quickly learned 1-3. Every 5 days I added another number til we got up to 10. On good days she can remember them all in order, other days she skips around. She's 2 1/2, so normal for her attention span. Not to mention she does the same when saying numbers in English!

When I started her on the family section, we also learned the Frere Jacques song (thank you to the Wiggles for that!), and it helped reinforce. It is quite funny in that she will throw the French (mere) out to me or my mother without thinking at times.

The food section quickly caught her eye as it had Apple (la pomme) her FAVORITE food. She also quickly caught onto bread (du pain) as we've bought bread at French styled bakeries in New Orleans, so she's heard it before. 

She also caught onto some of the phrases easily as my mother and I will use them occasionally, so hello (bonjour) and yes (oui) came easy.

Because my daughter is going thru THAT phase already (SIGH) getting her to be consistent to use the words is slow. However, I think that this book will be SUPER to keep going back to every few days and reviewing words or introducing new words.

I think this would be a GREAT Christmas gift and one that would be superb for grandparents to share with their grandchildren. It would be a nice way to bring back some of your family's heritage, as many families when they assimilated no longer taught their native lamguages to their children.

The series also includes Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and German. We will be working on the German books soon as well, so that review will be forthcoming!


Disclosure: Capstone Publishing sent me this book, at no cost to me, for review purposes. I was not told how to review the book, or what to put in the book, nor was I compensated in any other way for the review