Review: Speekee Spanish Language Program

This review is for the little ones in our lives. I was given a trial subscription to Speekee TV, an online Spanish language program for children ages 2 to 10. Speekee TV features 10 episodes entirely in Spanish, for a full 150 minutes of learning time. Each episode has a different theme, and the vocabulary for the day is based off of that theme. Some themes include: 'the park', 'the cafe', 'class time', 'the beach', 'the zoo', and 'at home'. Speekee TV is purchased as a subscription, costing $7.50 per month, with the first two weeks being FREE! You can terminate your subscription at any time.

Both kids were able to watch and enjoy Speekee TV. Each episode features Speekee, a lovable purple puppet, a friend named Jim, two quirky sock puppets, and several children. Filmed on location in Spain, the Spanish is excellent, and the varied situations give one a fairly broad, basic, vocabulary. Each episode has several catchy songs, as well as short segments teaching numbers, colors, and counting, as well as themed vocabulary segments interspersed throughout. The shows are entirely in Spanish, but you do have the option for subtitles in both Spanish and English. This product comes in both a DVD format and as the online subscription.

Things We Liked:

*The episodes are really well done in terms of props, scene setting, and general appearance of the shows.

*The songs are catchy, and the characters open and friendly.

*Short episodes, but rich in content.

*Each episode comes with downloadable worksheets correlating to the content on that episode. Just print and extend the learning time with your kids. I REALLY enjoyed this feature.

*Available online. I prefer online products to downloads most of the time because it saves disk space on my computer.

My only complaint is that my kids really didn't pick up much Spanish. My daughter (4) complained that "she couldn't understand anything they were saying", and my son (5) reads already, so he spent a lot of time reading the subtitles in English and interpreting what they were saying for us. Some of the examples were a bit ambiguous as to what they were referring to. For instance, at one point, the girl was counting blocks of different colors. She would pick up one colored block and say, "uno". Then she would pick up the next colored block and say "dos", and so on. I asked my daughter what she was saying, and she told me that she thought they were teaching colors since each block was a different color. I think some of the segments could have been built with a little more clarity, keeping in mind that some of the children watching would have no background knowledge with which to build from.

That being said, I think this program would be a great companion to a home where Spanish is spoken from time to time or in a situation where a child was learning Spanish from other sources as well. Perhaps too, with more exposure to the same episodes, my children may have picked up some Spanish words.

If this product interests you, visit their website here and poke around!

Adios! ;)

Note: I received this product free of charge in exchange for my honest review. I did not receive any compensation and all opinions are mine.