Featured: “Confidence Readers”

Thank you to Keith Toda for reviewing and showcasing “Confidence Readers” by Adam Giedd.

• Keith has been teaching Latin for over 25 years and currently teaches and serves as the World Language department head at Parkview High School in Lilburn, GA. A recovering grammar-translation teacher, Keith has been implementing Comprehensible Input and Acquisition-Driven Instruction in the Latin classroom since 2013.

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Title: Confidence Readers by Adam Giedd

Language: Spanish

This Book / Reader is: for language learners (individual / classroom)

Link to Purchase / Access the Book / Reader:

https://www.confidentpigeon.com/

Book / Reader Overview:

These readers are specifically designed for Novice-Low Spanish readers. The author Adam Giedd writes, “For someone learning a new language, reading their first book in that language is a huge milestone — one that inspires immense confidence. That confidence is like rocket fuel propelling towards fluency…Traditionally, students had to wait months until they could independently read most “level 1” graded readers for language learners. Confidence Readers change that. Now, learners can start reading on day one.”

Further Insights:

I was looking for possible novellas to get for my department. I came across these, and as a Novice-Low Spanish reader myself, I figured that I needed to check these out myself. These are SO good! As soon as I finished one, I began reading the next one. What I loved about these readers: – TONS of repetition of high frequency words. – Short sentences, with each primarily focusing on one main idea. – Lots of usage of cognates which allows for readers to focus then on the meaning of the high frequency Spanish vocabulary. – The text is not written as paragraphs but individual sentences, with only maybe 3-4 sentences at most per page. -The plots are VERY compelling. This indeed proves that one can actually create a very interesting, entertaining story with a limited total word count. – Lots of humor interjected in the plots – I can tell that these were written with middle school students in mind! – Predictable, repetitive sentence structures – as a novice reader, I am realizing just how important that is for beginner readers. – Every page has color illustrations – that definitely leads to the compelling nature of the readers. While allowing for double input, it also makes the readers feel like true books. But most importantly: I cannot tell you how incredibly successful and confident I felt in reading them as a novice-low level reader of Spanish! The length of each reader was exactly what I needed in terms of input. These readers definitely do inspire confidence in reading! These Spanish readers are great material for FVR, since they are incredibly easy to read and do not take long.

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