We were featured in the Mompreneur of the Month section of Mom Magazine!

Mom magazine is a quarterly magazine brought to you by the creative team behind Pregnancy.

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An excerpt:

Recognizing that children learn through multiple modalities – visually, auditorally, and kinesthetically – the Lim Pim company is working to develop a variety of products to engage children in language learning. Currently they offer a fun music CD in both Spanish and French, as well as picture flashcards in those two languages. And now an iPhone app is available in Spanish and French: Little Pim Word Bag. Digital downloads of the DVDs in all ten languages are available for home computers and portable digital players (such as iPhone or iTouch), which makes learning on the go fun and convenient.

The LittlePim.com website offers printable coloring pages and an interactive “Talking Coloring Book” feature in most of the available languages. A free digital newsletter keeps parents and teachers informed about new products and language additions.

Read the full review here: http://languagestudy.suite101.com/article.cfm/little-pim-language-learning-program-review

New York Metro Parents is an award-winning magazine in New York City that parents turn to for guidance on education, health, activities, and parenting tips. They interviewed me in an article entitled Language is a Family Affair.

Note: Clicking the image will open a new window to a larger version of the article (you may have to click on it again to make it full size).

Parent Guide is the oldest and largest local parenting publication in the country. They serve 18 counties, throughout New York, Long Island, Westchester, Rockland and New Jersey, with ten different regional editions. They featured Little Pim in their “Don’t Miss“ section.

]]> http://www.littlepim.com/little-pim-and-julia-pimsleur-levine-in-the-media/feed/ 0 http://www.littlepim.com/julia-on-fox61-with-sarah-french/ http://www.littlepim.com/julia-on-fox61-with-sarah-french/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:23:43 +0000 Julia Pimsleur Levine http://www.littlepim.com/?p=3833 This morning I had the exciting opportunity to be interviewed by Sarah French (a Little Pim-approved surname!) on the Fox61 Connecticut morning show about foreign language learning for kids.

Sarah was interested in knowing why it’s so much easier for young children to absorb a new language and at what age they should start — you know the answer, the earlier the better! You can check out our discussion in the clip below or stop by the Why Starting Early is Key page of our site for a more in-depth explanation. Merci, Sarah!

I attended a presentation about Media Literacy for Kids at a National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) teacher’s conference this past year and wanted to share a few important lessons I learned, along with some of my own thoughts as a mom who has been making media for more than 20 years.

1) Media is not inside you. Make efforts to teach your child from an early age that media is “outside of their bodies.” That may sound obvious, but research shows that young children often think that what they are watching is not only real, it is inside their heads. I told my four year old last year that what he sees on TV is on the screen, which is different from what is inside his mind. We went over it several times. I wasn’t sure he understood, but a few months later (kids are amazing how they store information, like nuts for the winter) he told his friend, “What you see in the movies is not inside your head!” and really seemed to have taken in the message. He went on to assure his friend that scary movies (we were talking about Avatar) are not that scary, because they are only on the screen, not inside your head.

2) Watch “good media” with your kids. Make a point of watching some educational media with your children, especially if you let them watch both pure entertainment media and educational media. If you watch the educational media with them, you’ll be sending a message that it’s more important (i.e. worth your time, which is precious to them) and help them create healthy viewing habits. I watch Little Pim about twice a week with my two year-old, and he can see that this is something I make time for and enjoy with him, unlike the “Sing Yourself Silly” videos he watches, which I don’t usually sit down for. I also watch nature and science programs with my five year-old.

3) Talk about the media they have seen. Whenever possible, ask your children to comment on the media they watched. This way you can make sure they aren’t taking away distorted messages (and help to correct it if they are) and can establish a dialog with your kids about what they have seen. This will become even more important as your kids grow older and see more and more challenging and sometimes disturbing media. When they are young, you can ask them to look for certain things in a show, like “see if you can find all the ducks” or “who is the kindest character?”. This teaches them active viewing skills, which is one of the most important cornerstones of media literacy.

This is especially important for girls, who will be bombarded with messages from the media about how they should look and act.

In short, help your children learn to be active and critical media consumers. Visual media has a strong sway on young children and can be much more mesmerizing than print and audio. If you teach your children to make healthy media choices, they will gravitate toward fun, educational shows when they get old enough to make their own choices. Media is here to stay, so let’s get smart about teaching media literacy to our kids. It’s likely they will be teaching us how to use the media of the future, but right now there is still a lot we can teach them.

How have you introduced your kids to media literacy? Share your stories with us at Little Pim.

Watch the clip below:

BusinessWeek has just named Little Pim one of America’s Most Promising Startups! We’re featured third in a list of 89 small businesses.

The article by Nick Leiber touched on why I created Little Pim, the language teaching legacy I inherited from my father, and Little Pim’s growth trajectory to date.

The article also mentioned our soon-to-be-released Little Pim iPhone apps! We’ll be sure to let you know when they go live.

Read the article here: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/06/0627_fresh_entrepreneurs/4.htm ]]> http://www.littlepim.com/businessweek_littlepim/feed/ 0 http://www.littlepim.com/new-york-times-foreign-language-article/ http://www.littlepim.com/new-york-times-foreign-language-article/#comments Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:42:32 +0000 Julia Pimsleur Levine http://www.littlepim.com/?p=2947 Last week the New York Times reported on the unfortunate rate at which foreign language education programs in schools in the northeast are being cut to help balance budgets. If you’ve been following my blog, you probably share in my belief that speaking a foreign language is no longer an expendable luxury but an important twenty-first century skill.

The article quotes Marty Abbott, the director of education for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages as saying, “In many cultures, a lot of business does not get done around the business table, it gets done in side conversations and social situations. If you can’t participate in those discussions, you get left out.”

I’d add to that, that not only is speaking several languages good for business, it is equally important for early childhood brain development and social skills. It has been so exciting creating Little Pim and finding out that many parents out there share my conviction that kids should have access to language lessons as young as possible. We want kids to be introduced to languages at home or in preschool, and to then continue with language classes in elementary school.

If your school is eliminating its language programs, make sure the principal and the district know your views. I’m contacting mine today. I’ve also written a letter to the editor of the NY Times, and fingers crossed, it will be one of the ones chosen to be published.

Read the NY Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/education/13language.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=foreign%20languages%20fall%20as%20schools&st=cse

We’ve all seen how easily young children soak up information, and their brains are hard-wired to absorb up to three languages with ease.

The Jolie-Pitt children are all learning French and we’re proud to be a part of their language education. Last November, Angelina Jolie told US Weekly that she was using Little Pim to teach Shiloh French.

Whether you’re a celebrity parent or not, giving your child the gift of a second or third language is something you’ll never regret. And they will thank you for their rest of their lives!

Yahoo! picked up a great article by Associated Press medical author Lauran Leergaard on the widely discussed topic of how children learn languages with such ease. Scientists continue to unravel the neurology behind language learning. This research says that the ideal window for one to become fluent in a second language is between the ages of birth and age seven.

“While new language learning is easiest by age 7, the ability markedly declines after puberty.”

And take note parents:

“Baby brains need personal interaction to soak in a new language — TV or CDs alone don’t work.”

That’s why Little Pim was created in 5-minute episodes. It’s the perfect length for you to stop the DVD and interact with your tot. Play with the new words together. We have several games and coloring pages to share on the website, and new print and music materials are coming soon to make Little Pim the multifaceted language learning resource you’ve always dreamed of!