Hola Books

📍 ATDLE 2026, here we come!

This week, the Hola Books team is headed to San Diego for the ATDLE Conference, where we’ll be sharing not only our Spanish-first literacy resources, but also what we’ve learned through years of studying, designing, and implementing instruction grounded in the Science of Reading for Spanish-speaking and multilingual learners.

Too often, conversations about reading instruction in Spanish begin with a translated English framework. But Spanish is not English.

Spanish has a transparent orthography, different linguistic features, and unique pathways to literacy development. Effective reading instruction in Spanish requires more than translating materials—it requires a deep understanding of how children learn to read in Spanish, explicit and systematic foundational skills instruction, rich oral language development, meaningful opportunities for comprehension, and access to authentic texts that reflect students’ identities, cultures, and experiences.

At Hola Books, we’ve spent years asking hard questions:
✨ What does research actually say about learning to read in Spanish?
✨ Which practices transfer from English, and which do not?
✨ How do we support multilingual learners without compromising language development?
✨ What does it mean to build biliteracy with clarity, coherence, and care?

We’re excited to share our learning during our session:

🎤 From Research to Practice: Teaching Reading in Spanish with Clarity
📅 Thursday, June 18
⏰ 3:45–5:15 PM
📍 Pacific F–G

And be sure to stop by Booths 24 & 25 to explore our Tier 1 foundational skills program, supplemental intervention resources, read-aloud collections, classroom libraries, and more.

The Science of Reading belongs in Spanish, too—but only when we honor the language, the research, and the students in front of us.

We can’t wait to learn with you in San Diego.

✨ Why did we start Hola Books?

Because 20 years ago, I was the teacher sitting on the classroom floor surrounded by sticky notes, copied resources, mismatched books, and lessons I was desperately trying to make work for my bilingual students.

I was constantly searching for materials that truly honored Spanish, supported multilingual learners, and aligned with what we know about how children learn to read.

They didn’t exist.

So I built Hola Books for that teacher.

And over the years, we built Hola Books for the teachers we continue to be today.

The educators who understand that multilingual learners need more than translated curriculum. The educators who know that literacy is about more than phonics. The educators who believe students deserve materials that build language, identity, knowledge, and joy alongside strong foundational skills.

We built Hola Books because we know what it feels like to spend hours fixing curriculum that was never designed for your students.

We know what it feels like to search for books that reflect your learners, lessons that fit within a real classroom schedule, and resources that honor Spanish as its own language—not as a translation of English.

And we know what it feels like to want better.

That’s why every decodable book, lesson, assessment, read-aloud, classroom library, and professional learning experience we create is grounded in one simple question:

Would this have helped us as teachers?

If the answer is no, we go back and improve it.

Because at Hola Books, we’re not creating materials for teachers.

We’re creating materials with teachers in mind.

For the teacher I was 20 years ago.

For the educators we are today.

And for the teachers helping the next generation become bilingual, biliterate, and proud of every language they speak. ❤️

Because our mission has never been simply to help children learn to read.

It’s to ensure they can read, write, think, and thrive in more than one language.

Today was one of our favorite kinds of days. 💛

Our team spent the day packing Summer Family Program kits for migrant families, preparing books, family workbooks, and resources that will help keep children reading, learning, and growing all summer long.

We know that literacy doesn’t only happen in classrooms—it happens on couches, at kitchen tables, during bedtime stories, and in the everyday moments families share together. That’s why we love partnering with schools and districts that invest in students beyond the school year.

These summer kits are more than books and activities. They are an invitation to read together, talk together, laugh together, and continue building strong literacy habits at home.

This is what it looks like when schools support families with love, care, and a whole lot of joy. ❤️📚☀️

Thank you to the districts and migrant education programs making this work possible. We can’t wait for these boxes to reach the hands of students and families!

The Science of Reading is so much bigger than phonics alone.

Neuroscience research from Maryanne Wolf, Rebecca Gotlieb, and Laura Rhinehart reminds us that reading requires the brain to connect language, meaning, vocabulary, comprehension, emotion, background knowledge, and identity into an entirely new neural circuit.

And for multilingual learners? This matters deeply.

Biliteracy instruction cannot simply be translated from English. Spanish literacy development requires its own understanding of language structure, fluency, orthography, oral language, and comprehension development.

The research is clear:
Students need BOTH explicit foundational skills instruction AND culturally sustaining, language-rich experiences.

At Hola Books, this belief guides everything we create because multilingual learners deserve literacy instruction that is:
✨ Explicit
✨ Systematic
✨ Language-specific
✨ Identity-affirming
✨ Culturally sustaining

The future of literacy instruction is not “skills OR culture.”

It is both.

Comment “Research” and we’ll send you the article directly to your DMs.

La prosodia transforma la lectura.

Cuando los estudiantes leen con ritmo, entonación y expresión, no solo “suenan mejor” al leer… también comprenden más profundamente lo que leen.

En español, la prosodia es especialmente importante porque nuestro idioma está profundamente conectado con la oralidad, el significado y la expresión.

La fluidez no es rapidez. La verdadera fluidez incluye precisión, automaticidad, prosodia y comprensión.

Necesitamos modelar lectura expresiva, leer en voz alta todos los días y crear oportunidades para que los estudiantes escuchen cómo “suena” el lenguaje con significado.

Porque leer no es decir palabras. Leer es construir sentido. ✨

En Hola Books creemos que los estudiantes merecen materiales auténticos y una enseñanza explícita que apoye el desarrollo de la fluidez, la comprensión y la biliteracidad desde el inicio.

📚 ¿Quiere fortalecer la lectura en español en su escuela o distrito?

Conozca nuestros programas, bibliotecas y desarrollo profesional en holabooks.com

We are so excited to share that Hola Books will be at the Region 10 ESC Multilingual Symposium on May 27–28!

Come visit us and join our session:
“What Does it Mean to Teach Reading in Spanish with Clarity, Coherence, and Care?”

We’ll be talking about what it truly means to build Spanish literacy instruction grounded in the science of reading, while also honoring the linguistic strengths, identities, and experiences of multilingual learners.

Stop by our booth to explore our IMRA-approved Comprehensive Foundational Skills Program for Spanish literacy instruction and intervention. Designed specifically for Spanish, our program supports students through authentic decodable texts, explicit foundational skills instruction, rich oral language development, and materials created with multilingual learners at the center.

We cannot wait to connect with educators, leaders, and advocates who care deeply about biliteracy and multilingual education.

See you in Region 10!

Esta semana es para ustedes. 💛

To every bilingual teacher who has ever stayed late translating a worksheet that didn’t quite fit, searched for a decodable that actually decodes in Spanish, or built lessons from scratch because the “right” materials didn’t exist yet — we see you.
Your students are becoming readers because of you. And you deserve materials worthy of the work you do every single day.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to the maestras and maestros holding biliteracy together with brilliance, heart, and café. ☕

A classroom library doesn’t transform students on its own. It transforms them because of you — the teacher who protects reading time, who recommends books with intention, who listens, observes, and believes deeply that every child can become a reader.

Our libraries are designed to amplify what you already do. Not to add more to your plate. To give more force to your teaching.

Auténtico. Intencional. Para usted y sus estudiantes.

Did you know we host Spanish book fairs?

Not just any book fairs—
we bring together books from over 200 publishers across Latin America and Spain.

Stories that feel like home.
Language that sounds like your students.
Books that invite children to see themselves, their families, and their cultures reflected on the page.

Because access matters.
And so does authenticity.

This week, we’re at Adelante/Selby Lane School supporting their incredible Spanish immersion families, teachers, and students—and it’s exactly why this work matters so much.

If you’re in the Central Coast, Bay Area, or Northern California, reach out to us. We’d love to bring a Spanish book fair to your school or community.