bilingual kids, keeping other language up to scratch especially written language

[pillowcase]

Hi all,
My kids (8, 6 and 4) are bilingual French/English and we're living in France.

I've had the niggling question for a few years now about how to keep their English up to scratch. Their spoken language is fine (a few misplaced translations etc but nothing to worry about) but they have no grounding whatsoever in written English, spelling etc. DD1 is nearly 9 and I think it's time to get her reading/writing in English but I can't seem to get myself motivated to find out how and what?

I have a vague idea that she should be able to follow the Irish (or English) curriculum for her age group with an aim to (maybe) sitting the English paper in the Irish junior cert at 15 or something similar.

Sounds like a pushy mum but she does very well in all her school subjects so it would be no stress for her really, more for me to have to plan/teach/correct

Just wondering if anyone is in a similar situation and how you have tacked it?

To be honest with you.... I feel a bit nervous about this 100 lessons book...

Being literate isn't just knowing your letter names, common digraphs, trigraphs and sight words, being able to write an okish letter to Granny at Christmas and spending time hiding behind Harry Potter...

Reading is a more complex multi-layered skill than you could ever teach fully in just 100 lessons. It takes direction, yes, but also lots of experience. Margaret Meek argues that texts teach what readers learn - and it is true. We learn how to read by reading real and high quality literature. Reading a form and reading a poem are very different skills, reading a novel and reading an article, reading how to put your new wardrobe together and reading a post on mn.... all these require different vocabulary, responses, levels of understanding, empathy and basically a huge number of very different demands from the reader.

I think your daughter will have more success if you employ a teacher for formal text, sentence and word level tuition. You should then ensure that you weave reading opportunitues into the natural pace of your family life. When you are at the museum pick up the leaflet in English and read it with your dd then put her in charge of finding where to go, read with your children in English at least once a day, ask them to read the shopping list out in Monoprix, have a big stock of English board games, organise English speaking penpals to e-mail, chat on msn with and write to by mail, buy lots of English book, subscribe to The Beano and cook using English recipes with your children these are just some reading and writing opportunities there are many many more.

As well as this you MUST model being literate in English too. Openly write, read, speak and listen in English. Make it look respectable, fun, desirable and worthwhile doing. My best friend's Father was a keen musician in his spare time - it is no surprise all his children are wonderfully talented in playing many instruments. If you employ a good teacher and model literacy well your children are likely to become literate as naturally, easily and annoyingly well as my friend's family play music!

Becoming literate in any language is a wonderful thing - Enjoy the process in English!!!

Pillowcase, reading test here

what I have found with my dcs is that you don't to go through the whole process of becoming literate twice

the BIG cognitive process is understanding how letters work in the first place and how to achieve complexity in thinking

understanding how they work in another language, which you also speak, is a far easier matter

if your children already speak fluent English, then they probably won't need the same level of tuition as they will need in the first language they learn to read in

otoh teafortwo's suggestions of integrating English are extremely good

Oh yes - You only learn the concept of what reading and writing is once!

My husband is fairly bilingual (lets not discuss what is meant by being bilingual - it is a tricky subject in itself)- but when he writes in English it is always artificially formal because he doesn't have a high level of flexibility with written English. When he reads he finds inference and deduction difficult and vocabulary choices(and jokes within the text) trip him up. He says reading in English makes him feel like there is a cloud between the book and him.

This is being 'literate enough'. He can read and write in English but he lacks fluidity, flexibility and true understanding.

For pillowcase's daughter to achieve true literacy in English she MUST think of literacy as a broad deep thing and much more than what is taught in that 100 lesons book or sorry claricebean a high score in dreaded 'reading age'tests.

Where has the OP written that she assumed it would be enough to read a book on 100 ways to teach her dc to read? She said in her OP that she feels she now needs to tackle her dd's reading/writing skills in English so I presume she sees that book as a starting off point to get the ball rolling. It's hardly likely that anyone would assume having worked through one workbook on how to read, a dc would have all the literacy skills they need acquire in life.

I can't comment on that 100 lessons book personally as I have never seen it; however if dd is now 9, I do think it is a good time to start and I think she should would cope well with a bit of English practice alongside her French schoolwork.

I think beyond a certain point that kind of flexibility is something that you have to be motivated enough to learn on your own. 100 easy lessons is a start.

My mum (whose was not herself a native English speaker) gave up formal English lessons with me once I had got to the stage where I could read a chapter book and hold a reasonable conversation. Anything beyond that, I have done for myself.

sorry: who was not herself a native speaker

(she should have gone in for typing lessons instead)

teafortwo, I am by no means saying that a reading test is the OP's answer to everything. I don't think she thought that either when requesting the link. However, I found it a very useful tool because, when you are teaching your DC to read a language in a vacuum (i.e. without the backup of teachers at school / other friends' reading), you sometimes need some reassurance that your DCs (and your own teaching methods) are on track. As I said in my earlier post, it has also been a motivator for me to keep going with DD2's reading.

Yes, cory, I agree. The child themselves (and later the adult) will play a big part in which languages they use, and for what, going forward. What is important as a parent is to give them a good grounding so that you are widening rather than closing down their opportunities.

To be clear, I used the 100 lessons book when my DD1 was 4. She's now 8.5 and has since learned the mechanics of reading in French at school. The 100 lessons was a great start, she loved the book because it looked like an adult book with lots of text and very few pictures. It worked for us and it focused us.

claricebean, thanks for the link.

I will use that test as a tool to guage whether we have a huge task ahead of us or whether she's more or less the same as a monolingual child of her age in Ireland/England. I'm not going to beat her with a stick if she doesn't score highly enough

I agree totally with teafortwo that the pleasure of English around us and of course we will also read comics, board games, recipes etc.

Good luck with it, pillowcase. I'd be interested to know how you get on going forward. I am concious that when DD1 moves from her Spanish state school to the international school her writing in English will be probably be the thing that is most behind. The Spanish system doesn't allow for a great deal of creativity in writing either.

Something I am very aware of is that English vocabulary and expression are much broader than French vocabulary and expression. So a bilingual child brought up with French as his/her dominant/school language will have a hard time getting to grips with the possibilities vocabulary and expression can offer; in much the same way that the rules of grammar (conjugation, anyone?) can be very difficult for someone brought up bilingually for whom English is the dominant/school language, as grammar is where the complexity of French lies.

didnt realise i'd caused an arguement by discussing the 100 lessons book! (i've just ordered it from amazon).

I think as intelligent parents we are well aware that books like this are just a starting block for reading and by no means the end. children need to pick up the basics somewhere and in our case that will be in english as ds wont go to school in germany until he's nearly 6! I read to him numerous times in the day in English and he knows all his letters to look at so why not use a book specifically designed to start him being able to read! we're not all teachers by profession and i will gratefully use whatever means i need to ensure our children grow up to be good readers in whatever language they learn.

claricebean - Have you considered using British attainment targets? I find them to be a much more rounded way of assessing literacy development. I can send you a link if you'd like...

I wasn't wewl dissin' (see how flexible I am in English - ha ha ha) the one hundred lessons book specifically - it is just one example of all those books cleverly packaged in such a way that parents buy them thinking they will be great for childrens' development when they would be better off spending the money on some really great 'give 'em goosebumps and make their tummies flip with delight'literature for children!

We are at a stage in education where we have such a wonderful understanding of how humans learn, retain and develop skills. Unlike in the past bilingualism has now been rightly identified as being beneficial to overall lifelong learning. My husband wasn't taught to read and write in English formally as his teachers thought he would get confused with French so the fact he is 'literate enough' in English is an impressive achievement.

I think today, knowing what we know about bilingualism, we as parents of children who can easily be bilingual or trilingual or more should ensure we are catalysts to ensuring our children become as literate in their languages as they possibly can! This can only be achieved if literacy in both (or all) languages is woven into the fabric of living. Being literate in your Mother tongue shouldn't be understood by children as being at best this kooky little thing that makes me stick out from my peers and Mummy insists on me doing once a week if she remembers and I'm certainly not going to remind her! It should be simply part of life.

Hi all,

What would you recommend to introduce a UK-based 7 & 8 year old to reading in French?

Thanks.

teafortwo, I must digress! I studied Russian for O'level at age 17. I had to learn a whole new alphabet and hence reading and writing. We did writing in a similar way to 5 year olds . Big lines, copying letters etc.

I never kept it up but can still "read" the cyrillic alphabet. My spoken Russian is sadly limited to "Boris is a tractor driver on the collective farm", "I like to collect mushrooms in the forest" and "I want to sleep with Boris".

BarkisIsWilling,
Not sure if it would be useful for you but our school uses a book called 'AbracadaLire' for the 6 to 7 year olds and it's specifically for learning the sounds and reading. It isn't very exciting but gets the job done.

Portofino,
your story reminds me of my efforts with Japanese. I lived in Japan for a year and studied the language diligently, so decided to sit the exam for foreigners, lowest level. We had to memorize 100 kanji (I think, or was it 40?) but I did my homework and sat the exam and passed. The teacher proudly told me that I now had the level of a 4 year old!!

So yes I'm madly jealous of my kids who can switch effortlessly

teafortwo, I don't know what British attainment targets are, but would be interested to find out more. Yes please to a link.

Ooooooooh - CB - you are going to love attainment targets!!!

curriculum.qca.org.uk/key-stages-1-and-2/subjects/english/attainmenttargets/index.aspx

It is a 'best fit' scheme. Children are assessed in writing, reading and speaking and listening. Basically most 6-7 year olds in the UK usually achieve a level 2 at the end of the year. Some will be achieving a level 1 or below some level 3 but most level 2.

It is expected that the majority of 11 year olds will be achieving level 4 - although of course some will be achieving level 5 or above others level 3 or below.

A level 7 is said to be equal to a GCSE grade C.

Hope this is of help!

OK progress report.

Did the Burt test with 2 dds this morning. DD1 has a reading age of 8.7 and she is exactly 8.7. Great result for her. DD2 has a reading age of 7.11 and is aged 6.10 so very good, easy to see that she's stretched by having and older sister.

Interesting things I noticed: They were both a little bit influenced by French pronunciation. For the word 'journey', both pronounced it like the French 'journée' which has a different meaning.

I was a bit shocked when it became obvious they didn't know the meaning of some words (which I thought they should know), some of which they guessed the pronunciation correctly. So I'm now convinced that lots and lots of reading is the way to go.

castille,
Just read your comment about employing a teacher for creative writing. Could you give me an idea of the kind of things he/she does?

I don't know what/how creative writing is done in England but I've read the comment often about how it's lacking in French schools. DD1 would write a commentary whenever they have a day-out (sports day, trip to cinema) which is part synopsis and part personal comments about film etc. Can't think of any other free writing they do and they don't have that many outings so I suppose she doesn't do much. How much would an 8 or 9 year old write in England and how often?

Interesting thread...back later...

I know my mum as a primary school teacher did a lot of creative writing with her 6-7 yr olds.

They would read stories or poems and write their own, or look at pictures and write stories based on them.

Not sure about other ideas, would be worth asking if there are primary school teachers on this board to help, maybe?

I am interested in all this as DS1 is 4.5 and just recognising letters etc in both languages.

He can't read any words yet though.

Pillowcase - when my girls were younger they studied poems or short stories and wrote their own, made up a short play, did weekly spellings, that sort of thing. I specified when looking for someone that I wanted creative writing to be the means by which they progressed in English, to kill 2 birds with one stone.

Now they are 11 and 9, their tutor is studying novels with them, using it also to inspire their own writing and does a bit of grammar, punctuation and spelling work. She also sets the 9yo a bit of homework to do at school while the rest of the class is in their beginners' English lesson (11yo is in the bilingual section of college now so has appropriate English lessons anyway). She is GREAT, they have learnt loads with her. I'm very sad she's leaving to go to university this year

For creative writing, when I was at primary school, the teacher would give us a handful of random words and we would have to write a story involving them all.

Or in a similar vein we would be given a sentence to start with or end with) eg 'It started like any ordinary day.....' or 'and that's why you should always have a clean hanky in your pocket.'

Or we would brainstorm words to do with 'autumn' or 'Christmas' then have to write a poem about the subject.