I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice.. We moved to France in April 2012, my daughter Hollie was coming to the end of British school Year 1 and so she had already learned about phonics and her reading was coming along nicely. We have continued her English reading programme as I managed to get hold of a good supply of reading books before we left the UK - (well it was Germany actually, but a British school as my OH was in the army). Hollie started CP in September and I am amazed by the speed she is learning to read and write in French
Now my question is about my son Christian. He is 4 now and is ready to start reading. I have the books ready from level 1, and he has been doing the activities on the British website "Teach Your Monster to Read". He's really loving it, but I am worried whether he will get confused when they come to teach him letters and sounds in French at school. He is in the Moyenne section and so it's still 20 months until he will be taught to read properly in French like Hollie is now.
Do kids get confused when learning to read both around the same time? Hollie had such a good foundation in English already, she was able to separate the two languages. But I don't know whether it will be too much for Christian to try and do both.
I'd love to hear about other people's experiences on this subject.
This is a very interesting discussion. If anyone is interested, I have a facebook page & group for parents of bilingual children living in France. Please feel free to have a look & join if you wish.
That's what we are doing too- but my wife also talks to our 4 YO daughter in Visayan as well. We make an effort to speak only English in the house but it's quite difficult and often we speak in different languages in the same sentence. What's more I'm forgetting some of my English and one supposes that where we are our daughter will not be able to converse easily with British urban youf as we no speaka das lingo non plus.
Yes Brian, used to have a similar story here with my daughter. My son didn't have any difficulty, but she used to write German but thinking in French (if that makes sense). The worst is the "ß", where she will still write "B", but read it as an "S".
Hahaha Kathrin. One of my daughters refuses to have it that German accents are of any use so whilst she sees them there when reading, when learning to write she does not bother. She accepts Italian accents though. The reason is, it would appear, that those the French use (Italian ones look the same at least) are normal but Umlauts look silly to her...
We are a bilingual family (English & German). Both children went to school here as from the age of 2 1/2 and obviously learned to read French there. I used to read (and sing, but that's a different matter) to them in all three languages when they were little, but we never taught them to read either English or German. As soon as they could read French (which they learned very easily, again without any help from us), they were able to read the other two languages as well. Without any input from us - I was actually shocked when my son read something to me in English, I couldn't understand where, when and how he learned it. Apparently, if they can speak the languages, the reading is obvious to them, once they learn to read one of the languages they speak. Writing is a different matter though!
Yes, I picked them up from Wendy Wise some time back, I think a few other SFN members use them too. Good offer. We also use Abe Books (they also offer Italian and German, plus French that are cheaper than buying here) for second hand.
Old topic, I know, but do either of you use Awesome Books for second hand books, either for kids or adults? There are no delivery costs to France if you buy at least two books at the same time and most second-hand books are around £2.60 each. The choice is out of this world, as they list over two million books. My BH & I use them to buy our favourite novelists at sensible prices, but also for virtually any other book that we fancy & hasn't been published in the recent past.
I think you should not hold off - we did as we were told it would be confusing and if anything it has held my grandson back somewhat. He is becomming more confident in reading in English and therefore now in French also.
My son is English and had had no English schooling before he came to France. He was nearly 4 years when we moved ton France. He is now 12 years old and can read English well, although his spelling in english could be better.
Iused to read him stories when he was small until he was about 7 years. he sometimes reads english books, however french is the favourable choice.
English TV definitely helped with learning new vocabulary in English. He is now in 6 eme at College and is learning english which will help him too.With grammar, verbs etc.
He is a very bright child but has a tendency to be lazy sometimes because of it. We have no regrets moving to France. academically i cannot fault the system however their Physical Education regime and choice of sports is definitely better in the uk x
UN-ese is not too bad for your girl, later, after a proper education. But be aware, before is coming the magic development of the 12 & 14 y.o. You will enjoy ;-) when suddenly the TF1 comic before school is hip and breakfast annoying.
Similar dilemma - Amazon have me hostage there with the number of orders for the voracious reader. Perhaps, whilst you and we have never taught reading or pushed it, you being a writer and we mainly writing for a living and having wall to wall books does somehow instil the curiosity about what is between their covers. I am not sure, but there seems to be a big difference depending on such things that I have often observed.
Tell that to my nine year old who prefers books to TV and 'consumes' them. She reads English and French, is able to read Italian slowly and is slowly picking up German. With a bit of help from you, after many years as a regular UN consultant and occasional rapporteur myself (mainly UNICEF but also ILO, WHO and UNESCO) we might be able to teach her UN-ese (poor child)!
I stuck a book in my kids hands as soon as they could hold one - around 9 months. They all went at different paces - No 1 taught herself to read in English aged 2 and a half. Number two learned to read in French at school age 6 and taught herself to read in English aged 8-9. Number three was reading both languages aged 5-6. I didn't ever do any 'teaching' to read - I read stories to them a lot - we did all of the Narnia chronicles when the eldest two were 5 and 7 and the house has always been filled with books.
All three are now voracious readers. (As well as facebook users!) I think kids do still love reading - half the time the problem is a lack of books. This is a bigger issue in France as kids books are not so good and very expensive compared to those in the UK. And there simply aren't the number of second hand outlets either.
agree about the necessity for reading as it is greater support for speaking correctly. Only, if I think about all the books we bought to collect dust it just becomes clear why in reality most kids are only reading "social" networks - its Facebook's "patronizing filter bubble" that is protecting them easily from serious discourse. Brain, Kids rarely read these days.
Disagree. Educationalists will tell us all that early reading has advantages and is very similar to speaking other languages, however written follows reading so that in educational terms it comes first. That is precisely why children are taught reading and writing at schools with less emphasis on the spoken and with us adults it is the opposite.
I have two kids 6 and 3 years. They both speak perfectly 3 languages and the eldest one start is reading english and french ( arabic is coming along too ). kids don't have problems learning as much languages as you expose them too. coming myself from a mixed couple and married to a british I was so worried that my kids will be confused and will not learn anything at all. reading sounded to me more difficult than just speaking. but when my friend who's Japanese and married to indian and living here in france showed me how her 6 years daugther was writting and reading in all 3 languages with absolutly no problems, I was amazed. Doesn't this make you feel better?
Corinne, the thing to learn to read in this language can wait, that's our opinion. But you asked for input of experiences on this subject, so my opinion is therefore biased... My wife as British Singaporean is native English speaking and was very clear Kids have to read and speak English. Poor me, native German speaking, spoiled by UN scrap English with its multi language environment insisted to speak in German with the kids. I was not very much at home (because of the various deployments in many countries). However I can assure you, our kids where jumping from one language to another, so as if they did not wanted wasting a second on how to express themselves. It is kind of fun to be married on a "neutral" ground and kids gain from it. The kids learned very quickly how to interact with their French mates in school and when at home speaking English and German (same applies today to reading). When it comes to school, well they have had their "arguments" with their French teachers, lost sometimes self confidence because of obvious reasons that where not their problem,- this way they learned to be diplomatic. You don't have to worry reading a bit another language will certainly not confuse them till you parents are sticking to your language. Kids are picking up a language faster then you can imagine.