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Educators can take advantage of Latino English learners’ linguistic backgrounds by teaching Spanish–English cognate vocabulary using the Children's Choices picture books. Cognates are words that have identical or nearly identical spellings and meanings in two languages because of their Latin and Greek origins. Students can learn to recognize cognates through morphology and orthography lessons on prefixes, root words, suffixes, and spelling patterns. A cognate database featuring the 2014 and 2015 Children's Choices picture books is presented in this article. The database permits teachers to select their own cognate vocabulary for read‐aloud lessons. Finally, a sample lesson plan for grades 2–4 is discussed as an example for incorporating morphology and orthography instruction to accompany the selected cognate vocabulary words.

Teachers can use the rich linguistic backgrounds Latino English learners (ELs) bring to their classes to scaffold the learning of using‐the‐context strategies. Teachers can show their Latino ELs to use English–Spanish cognates to guess at the meanings of unknown words, thereby increasing both comprehension and vocabulary knowledge.

Spanish–English cognates have been used for decades to facilitate the acquisition of English by Latino English learners (ELs). Using the online program, WordSift, in tandem with the online Find‐a‐Cognate database, teachers can identify important Spanish–English cognates and noncognate words in text. With this information, teachers can plan and devise vocabulary lessons that benefit ELs and native English speakers.

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