Mumsnet Talk

Daughter is going to be 3 in a few weeks and is showing a lot of interests in letters/numbers and loves books/always has. Every bed time story currently consists of her pointing at letters in words asking what they are. (Which I guess means I need to stop adhoc translating English books into German when reading to her, but sticking to German books for a while).

Anyway, if she wants to learn to read we want to support her. She enjoys doing phonics at nursery, but I'm a bit unsure how we best go about it, as the sounds are different for a lot of letters, and I guess reading is taught differently in German. My own learning to read has occured so long in the past that I don't remember.

So how do we best go about it - want to avoid confusing her as much as possible, but I guess if she can cope with the idea that mummy speaks differently to daddy, the idea that she reads differently shouldn't be too hard either.

I don't want to pressurise/hot house her, much the opposite, we just pick up on what she wants to learn. I'm just not sure how to teach her.

In which language will she be educated? At what age will she start school? I would say age 3, not to stress about it too much. Just carry on reading the books - not translating them though. If it is an english book, read it in English. ditto German.

I'm having a similar problem at the moment as well. DD is 2.10 and asking about letters. I talk to her in Polish, DP in English and she goes to French nursery . I think I'll just teach her to read Polish before she'll start maternelle (no reading in creche) next September, then she'll learn French in school and English...I guess it'll be DP's job.

I agree with Portofine about reading the books in the language they're in. I read DD books in both Polish and English.

sorry, Portofino. Or Pantofino, in fact.

Thank you for your replies

Pantofino - she's in the UK so English is the dominant language - I will definitely not start reading to her in English, but just restrict myself to German books - she's getting so little exposure to German as it is, I don't want to reduce that any further. There's only me speaking German over here, one friend we maybe see once a week, plus the skype sessions with her grandparents. I'll be back to work full time in 3 months' time, so the exposure to German will be reduced even further.

They are already doing phonics in nursery, she's starting preschool next month and is just really interested in learning to read. I was not really asking whether I should teach her, but how to do it.

I have the exact opposite situation - we are in Germany, I am English and DH is German.
I am read mainly in English with ds (4.9) and am doing lots of letters and sounds etc, all as I would have done it back in the UK. The only thing I do is occasionally mention that "this is how we say it in English, German is different", but tbh he has a fairly clear concept of the two languages anyway.

I will not be teaching him German reading and writing, he will do that at school.

My parents (who are not English, though I was brought up in the UK) had a similar approach. My mum taught me to read and write in her language and let the school do English with me.

I have some simple reading books, the same ones that are used in reception in the UK, and we do some of those, plus the exercises.
You could do the same for German books, though as they don't learn to read until quite a bit later in Germany, you may find it difficult to find materials of the appropriate level.

My dd showed a similar interest in letters at this age and I told her what letters they were but left it at that. She also did phonics in nursery and is now in reception and doing well. My reason for not teaching her to read German before she started school was a) that I found it way too early and b) I read on a thread on MN at the time that it is better to let the child get to grips with reading in one language first and they will adapt to reading the other language on their own a little later. Learning to read English is complicated enough...
I have always read English and German to her, as has dh (although she doesn't like him to read German because of his accent... ). Now she is 4.5 I also occasionally let her watch Bullerbue and Pipi Langstrumpf on DVD etc. I consider her completely bilingual, as is her two year old sister. I think if you continue to speak to her in German and she has contact with her gps she's going to be fine .
Sorry, that was a long post...