Learn Spanish at Home with Rosetta Stone Homeschool

My 7-year-old son, Leo, spent one year in a 1/2-day public kindergarten before we began to [suddenly, unexpectedly] homeschool. It was a pretty cruddy year for the poor guy. The trouble started in the fall and snowballed from there. By December, he no longer wanted to attend school. By spring, I worried that his love of learning was lost. By May, we learned the crux of the matter: we had a profoundly gifted and twice-exceptional child on our hands, with academic skills two to six years above kindergarten level.

No wonder the little fellow was so unhappy! I cringe to think of what that year must have felt like to him.

There was one class, however, that Leo looked forward to each and every week. Do you want to know the one thing that he loved about that dreadful year of kindergarten?

Spanish class.

Disclaimer: I received Rosetta Stone  Homeschool Level 1 Spanish (Latin America) and compensation in exchange for an honest review of the product. I was not required to write a positive review. As always, all opinions are my own. 

Once a week, for forty minutes, Leo and his classmates had Spanish class. Leo delighted in the novelty of learning a new language, and would happily come home at the day’s end with new vocabulary words to wow his father and I with. I think it was the only time he felt challenged that entire year.

When we decided to homeschool, I had grand plans to continue with language learning. I figured it would be no big deal for me, especially considering the fact that I minored in Spanish in college.

But, here’s the thing… figuring out your first year of homeschool can be challenging. You don’t always manage to cross everything off that lengthy to-do list, especially if you decide to go have a major home renovation during the snowiest winter on record.

The reality is, we dabbled in quite a bit of language learning through the use of CDs, internet, and books, but we did not manage to adhere to a realistic schedule, especially during the height of construction. At the end of the year, I promised Leo that we would come up with a better plan for a homeschool language learning curriculum.

I have had my eyes on Rosetta Stone for years, folks. I thought about it for myself long before I even had children. I love the idea of learning a language at home, on your own schedule. I know friends who have used Rosetta Stone for work and travel purposes, with rave reviews. So, when the opportunity to review Rosetta Stone Homeschool was presented to me, I jumped at the chance.

What is Rosetta Stone Homeschool?

• Rosetta Stone Homeschool is a language-learning curriculum for homeschool families.
• The program provides parents with the tools and resources they need, from pre-determined curriculum paths.
• Rosetta Stone requires children to speak the language during the very first lesson, encouraging confidence. 
• With Rosetta Stone, children learn naturally using Rosetta Stone’s Dynamic Immersion® method of marrying native language speakers with real-life and culturally diverse images. This combination allows for immediate comprehension, without need for translation or memorization.
• Rosetta Stone provides immediate feedback to students, allowing for fast progression through material.
• Rosetta Stone is so interactive that children are engaged the entire time. This increases the fun factor and makes children want to come back again and again.

How we are using Rosetta Stone Homeschool

First, I’m going to be completely honest here, folks. I thought that Rosetta Stone was going to be difficult to set up. I imagined that it would take forever to install and then I would have to sit with Leo and tweak the program until it recognized his voice. Boy, was I mistaken! It took me less than thirty minutes to install on my [super-slow] desktop. And the headset? All Leo had to do was to listen for a beep and then say, “One, two, three, four, five” into the microphone.

That’s it!

Had I known it would be that easy to install, I would have installed it a week earlier. Instead, I kept waiting until I “had time” when, in reality, I needed half an hour.

Leo has been happily using Rosetta Stone every single day [with the exception of our vacation] since I installed the program.

He asks to use it.

He usually does more than one lesson a day because he gets lost in it.

He loves it.

I love that Rosetta Stone is filling a void for Leo, just as it did during his kindergarten year. Last year, we dabbled in foreign language but lacked a regularly scheduled curriculum. A kid, like Leo, who clearly loves Spanish needs a curriculum. One needs only to look at the above photo to see how happy he is while using the program. I am thrilled to include Rosetta Stone in our curriculum for this year.

Rosetta Stone is a perfect curriculum for Leo, as it requires that he listen carefully. This is a skill that Leo needs to practice, both in English and Español! In this video, you can see one of the ways in which Rosetta Stone requires the student to listen: 

Here is a video of Leo speaking Spanish using Rosetta Stone, and what happens when you make a speaking error. You’ll notice that my house is quite loud at times (this is typical) and the noise is not impacting the program’s ability to assess Leo’s pronunciation.

I love that Leo can progress through the Spanish course at his own pace. I also love that the curriculum is all planned out for me. It’s such a stress-free way to learn a language at home.

Perhaps the best aspect of using Rosetta Stone for our language learning curriculum this year is that everyone can use it.

I currently have four unique accounts set up for our family (talk about a bang for your buck right there, folks!):

1. Leo (age 7) is taking the full-year course option. This program is intended for students who are learning language for educational credit. It’s like having a teacher-led Spanish course in the comfort of your home office! The full-year course lessons include:
   • Listening
   • Reading
   • Speaking
   • Pronunciation
   • Writing
   • Grammar
   • Vocabulary
2. I minored in Spanish in college but I am extremely rusty. I am loving Rosetta Stone because I do no have to sit through an entire course re-learning old material and waiting for the professor to go over areas that I need to practice. Instead, I have elected to pick and choose lessons based on areas of weakness that I already know I have.
   

   Leo’s not the only one grinning from ear to ear!

3. T and Seuss, at 5 1/2 and almost 4-years of age respectively, are new to reading and writing in English. I’m certainly not expecting them to write in Spanish this year. They are using the Speaking and Listening Focus Rosetta Stone curriculum.

You can see here that even the youngest member of our party was able to use Rosetta Stone with some adult support. This video was taken during his very first lesson and his independence has increased significantly since then!

Rosetta Stone Homeschool might be a good choice for your homeschool language learning curriculum if…

• You have little or no language background
• You’re looking for something that you can install quickly and then not worry about
• You want an immersion-like experience without the huge price tag
• You are looking to avoid flashcards and memorization
• You are seeking flexible scheduling
• You’re looking for language learning opportunities that do not require extensive planning or supervision
• You are the parent of a gifted child who moves at a different pace than his or her peers
• You are the parent of an independent learner
• You are the parent of a visual learner
• You are a family looking to learn a language together, yet with personalized lesson plans for each individual
• You are looking for a cultural learning component
• You have younger children and want to focus on speaking and listening, rather than writing
• You’re looking to refresh your own rusty foreign language skills and seek to pick and choose the areas of weakness that you already know you have
• You desire the ability to track and manage your child’s language learning

Where to purchase Rosetta Stone

If you would like to purchase Rosetta Stone Language for Homeschool for your family, you can click here.

Can’t get enough Rosetta Stone?

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Now, it’s your turn. Tell me… have you tried Rosetta Stone? Share here!