About Nina Dos Rios

Nina Dos Rios is a community dedicated to closing the resource gap. We believe learning a new language should be fun and easy — never limited by a lack of materials.

That’s why we create culturally engaging, beautifully designed PDF resources that teachers can print and bring directly into their classrooms. Our free resources include English stories, coloring pages, and comprehensive Teacher’s Guides designed to make language learning creative, hands-on, and accessible to every classroom, no matter its budget.

We want students to read, color, connect, and enjoy learning English — with resources that put something useful and engaging right into their hands.

Why I Do This

I believe children learn language best when they have a reason to want to understand it.

A worksheet can teach a word. A vocabulary list can teach a definition. But a story can make a child wonder what happens next.

That is where Nina Dos Rios began.

I have spent much of my life around children, education, writing, art, and language. I know how much a good story can pull a learner into a new world—and how much easier it is to remember a word when you have used it to understand something that matters to you.

I also know that good teaching materials are not something every classroom or home-school parent can afford.

Many teachers and parents have very limited resources. Sometimes they buy all the school supplies themselves. Even ink and paper are expensive for classes of thirty kids. Sometimes the choices are simple: print something, or don’t print it.

I don’t think a child’s opportunity to learn English should depend on how much money is available for books or photocopies.

So, I decided to create something to give away.

Stories First

I love children’s literature. Apparently, I’ve been interested in this for a very long time.

My mother took Children’s Literature as part of her master’s degree in Home Economics at Long Beach State. That summer, I spent my days sitting on a rag rug thrown over a low branch in my grandmother’s apricot tree, reading the books from her course and critiquing them.

I still love a good children’s book, and I want to share that lifelong love of stories with another generation.

Nina Dos Rios now creates original English stories for young language learners. Each story uses carefully controlled language appropriate to a specific reading level.

The stories are written in clear, approachable English, but they are still meant to be stories—not disguised vocabulary drills.

There should be something to discover. Something funny. Something surprising. Something to learn. Somewhere to go.

And because I have always loved art as much as I love writing, the stories don’t stop with the reading.

Each story can become something a child can hold in their hands: printable coloring pages, activities, and materials that let students interact with the story instead of simply answering questions about it.

Coloring is not just an activity.

For a child learning another language, looking closely at a picture, recognizing a word, following a character through a scene, and then talking or writing about what they see are all opportunities to use language.

And, frankly, children need permission to have fun while they learn.

Made for Teachers, Too

I have enormous respect for teachers—I have to—my mom was a teacher and I know how hard most of them work to be sure kids learn.

Teachers are already doing the hard part—getting children interested, keeping them engaged, managing a classroom, and finding a way to teach what needs to be taught.

The last thing they need is another complicated resource that takes hours to figure out.

That’s why Nina Dos Rios stories are presented as complete teaching packages.

A teacher can read the story with the class, use the coloring pages, and turn to the Teacher’s Guide for additional vocabulary, questions, activities, and ideas to enhance the lesson.

The goal is simple:

Open it. Print what you need. Teach.

Why Free?

Because that’s the point. Since retiring, I have spent several years exploring Latin America, Indonesia, and the Philippines. I understand how kids there live in a world that is a bit different. They have electronics, but many also live in poverty.

If I make a story specifically to help children learn English, I don’t want the children who need it most to be the ones who can’t afford it.

The stories and their accompanying materials are free PDFs for you to download. They are here for any teachers, parents, and learners who can use them—anywhere in the world.

We operate on donations, not subscriptions or purchases. Free means free.

I like to keep things simple—

Just stories, coloring pages, and teaching materials to download, print, and use.

Where Does Nina Dos Rios Goes from Here?

Right now, Nina Dos Rios is a small project with a big idea.

I’m concentrating on writing the stories, creating the illustrations and coloring pages, building the Teacher’s Guides, and making everything easy for teachers to find and use.

As Nina Dos Rios grows, I hope we can build a community that shares stories and classroom ideas.

We need teachers to tell us what works, what their students love, and how they use our materials. In time, we hope that those who are able in our global community can support these classrooms with the basic supplies—like paper, ink, and crayons—that make free learning possible.

But I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

For now, I’m writing stories.

Because I still believe in the magic of a child opening a book and wanting to know what happens next.

That’s a pretty good place to start.