Teaching bilingual children to read

pickarooney

Has anyone any experience of this?

I want to start my son reading but am a bit unsure of the best way to go about it. My gut feeling is that it needs to be a combined effort, with each parent teaching him to read his/her language exlusively but am worried it might confuse the hell out of him. He knows what each letter of the alphabet stands for (e.g. when he sees 'J' he knows it's 'juice' or 'jus' depending on who asks him) but not yet the names of each letter.

In general terms, do people find learning bottom up (letters - syllables - words) or learning words as a whole to be a better technique? I think the former is a better basic principle (I'm pretty sure I learned that way myself) but as the pronunciation of syllables and even individual letters varies so much between the languages I fear we may be on a hiding to nothing.

I might not be giving kids enough credit and it may be as easy for them to distinguish between the two 'reading' languages as it is for the two spoken languages, but would love to hear anyone else's opinions and experiences.

p.s. is this in the right forum or would it be better suited to one of the Edu forums?

Archie D Bunker

There are various systems out there that help teaching children how to read, the right system for you depends on the child's age and current knowledge level.
However, if I recall correctly, if the two languages are from the same "family" (English & French for example would be considered from the same family, while English and Chinese are not), this could be very confusing for a child and is not really recommended until a later age.

And this subject would probably fit one of the EDU forums better than this one.

Nevyn

One launguage per parent seems to be a system which works, I know a few kids who have been reared that way.

pickarooney

Archie D Bunker wrote: »

However, if I recall correctly, if the two languages are from the same "family" (English & French for example would be considered from the same family, while English and Chinese are not), this could be very confusing for a child and is not really recommended until a later age.

Do you mean just team him to read one language for now or not teach him to read at all?

LittleBook

One language per parent works perfectly with regard to learning the oral aspect of two languages.

For reading, from personal experience I would recommend focusing on the language of the school the child will be attending and then when the child has a grasp of reading, move on to the second language. It should come easily enough as the child will already know the "technicalities" of reading and will be grounded in both languages.

Edit: Just to expand a bit on "boundaries" ... my daughter had school and homework in French and her "home" language was English. The language-per-location as well as the language-per-parent helps avoid confusion also.

pickarooney

So you think I'm just going to have to accept that English will always be his second language? I've been slowly coming to this conclusion. It saddens me, but I feel it might be inevitable. I really, really don't want to miss out on the joy of teaching him (them, I should say, but one at a time!) to read

LittleBook

pickarooney wrote: »

So you think I'm just going to have to accept that English will always be his second language? I've been slowly coming to this conclusion. It saddens me, but I feel it might be inevitable. I really, really don't want to miss out on the joy of teaching him (them, I should say, but one at a time!) to read

No, not at all! My daughter doesn't have a "second language", she's perfectly bi-lingual

I'm sorry but I'm not following your situation exactly ... what will be his "school" language and what is your language? Which part do you feel you'll be missing out on?

Galwaymother

I agree with LittleBook that you should wait a little until the child reads fluently in one language, the school one usually. Then the reading of the second language will be so much easier for them, they'll recognise the words they use orally immediately. Though I kept encouraging my daughters to read in French, they were reluctant until it came easily... Now my eldest reads nearly as fluently in both. The sound-letter connection is different in different language, so it can confuse them a little if they do both at the exact same time.

You are lucky if the language you want them to read and write through your teaching is English, most words are easily read and spelling is generally easy, at least compared to French! It's a different story having to teach formal French grammar i.e. the verb agreements etc! Also with English, the whole cultural environment in most countries is (maybe unfortunately!) pervaded with the language...
Good luck! Keep at it, it's nearly the most important skill you can teach them

silverharp

my 5 year old is bilingual in English and German , he started reading English last year and then my wife introduced German books this year, we just explain the exceptions as we go along. My wife tries to concentrate on German but as she is a linguist by profession her knowledge of English grammar is probably better then mine . Normally the reading is just part of the bed time routine but it suits as 15 to 20 min is about his concentration limit. It just seemed to click at some stage, he seems to just break the bigger words down himself. We haven't done much on spelling or writing yet and in any case the reading is much more useful for him.

pickarooney

LittleBook wrote: »

No, not at all! My daughter doesn't have a "second language", she's perfectly bi-lingual

I'm sorry but I'm not following your situation exactly ... what will be his "school" language and what is your language? Which part do you feel you'll be missing out on?

His school language (and the language of pretty much all day-to-day interactions) will be French. There's just me and Sesame Street to teach him English I don't think they start teaching them to read for a few years here, so it seems a waste to me to not teach him to read, at least in one language, in the meantime. My native language is English.

LittleBook

pickarooney wrote: »

His school language (and the language of pretty much all day-to-day interactions) will be French. There's just me and Sesame Street to teach him English I don't think they start teaching them to read for a few years here, so it seems a waste to me to not teach him to read, at least in one language, in the meantime. My native language is English.

OK, well that's exactly how it worked out for myself and my daughter ... French in school, English at home ... and without meaning to blow our own trumpets she's brilliant at English. We've since moved back to Ireland where she started 1st year of secondary school and most of her teacher's had/have no idea she didn't grow up in Ireland, her English is perfect.

I read to her every night in English and then teaching her to read just sort of happened! And I wouldn't worry about wasting time, there's no hurry. Your son will be perfectly bi-lingual soon enough.

I'm surprised at what you say about the teaching to read later in France but must admit my daughter was 5 when we moved there so I could have missed something. But I understood that they started learning to read in the "Petite section" of the Maternelle, more or less as it is in Ireland with Junior Infants. How old is he now?

In any case, using two languages at such an early age is a piece of cake for kids, particularly in your situation where there's a perfect distinction in the "territory" of each language. We had friends there who's children spoke French at school, German with their mother and Spanish with their father and had no problems!

Wait until your son has his friends over and he chatters away with them in French and turns to you and switches automatically to flawless English, it's amazing

pickarooney

LittleBook wrote: »

I'm surprised at what you say about the teaching to read later in France but must admit my daughter was 5 when we moved there so I could have missed something. But I understood that they started learning to read in the "Petite section" of the Maternelle, more or less as it is in Ireland with Junior Infants. How old is he now?

As far as I can tell they don't start learning to read at school until they're almost 6 here, which I find a bit ridiculous. He's three now and seems ready to move on past the basic 'A is for apple' stage.

gaeilgegrinds1

I'm interested on opinions on this. My partner and I speak three languages between us on a daily basis. He was brought up with two, same with me and we have one in common. What should we be doing? One set of grandparents speak one language, the other set another, confusing for us to know what to do!