One Third Stories – Bilingual Book Subscription For Children

Billingual Books for children? What is this about?

Over the Christmas break we introduced a few new books to the children. It’s hard to convince my boy to start a new book, because he always wants to read his current favourites over and over again. Every single day. He knows most of his books by heart, he has an amazing memory.

Just arrived with the post: our One Third Stories pack

What’s inside the box?

One of the new books was How The Dinosaur Got His Shoes published by One Third Stories. They produce a monthly book subscription for children (aimed ages between 4 to 9 years). The books start in English and end on a different language. They currently have the option of Spanish and French. So we opted for French and decided it’s going to be a some special time for daddy and Las. (As daddy speaks French.) First, the children can listen to the audio book, the story is being read by a native speaker. We had to skip this as Bobcat was not interested in it, because he didn’t understand it at all. This might be beneficial for older children. It’s also a help for the parent who reads the story, how to pronounce the foreign words.

Our book this month

English and French version

Counting in French

How does it work?

The book starts in English and some key words are written in French. What we had great success with are the numbers and the colours – my boy normally focuses on the details: numbers, colours and shapes. So now he knows his numbers 1-10 in French as well as the colours. I need to add that he’s currently on waiting list for the SCAT (this is the so called autism test), so we suspect that he’s love of exact things might be related to autism. I also need to add that although I’m Hungarian, I have struggled to teach him Hungarian. He only knows some basic words. (He understands a bit more.) So I was pleasantly surprised, that he picked up the French words from the book very quickly. This might be because of the visual help of the pictures in the book or because he found it funny to have a different name for a number. Or maybe of course because of his excellent memory – but he did pick them up. The story was a cute one too. So he enjoyed the book and I think some other children on the spectrum could try these books too. It might be encouraging them to understand the concept of a different language better and not to be anxious about not understanding foreign language.

Why should kids learn another language?

What else was in the pack?

The word cards are very useful, again, they are provide a visual aid – some children learns better with visual help. We only looked at the activity book briefly, my son is a little too young for that (he’s 3.5 and has some delays), but we made the cut-out dinosaurs and played with them. In my opinion, the activity pack, the word cards and the cut – outs are superb supporting material, with the book together, they make the new book and the new words good fun and interesting for the kids.

The Clockwork Methodology

I initially thought the concept of these books and the Clockwork Methodology (gradually introducing foreign words so your child will pick them up from context clues) are very clever and as we explored our way through the books and the cards, I can definitely confirm that.

Starting from £13.99 a month, 3 months, 6 months and 12 months subscriptions are available.

We received the this book pack in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.