Learning to read in two languages at the same time?

[roundthehouses]

Hi, my son is 3.5 and has just started preschool here in spain. We are a bilingual english/spanish household and although he started off much stronger in english tbh now his ability is pretty comparable in both languages.

He speaks spanish at preschool and they will be learning letters etc and starting to do all the normal ramping up towards reading over the next wee while. At home about 95% of his books are in english and we read a lot and talk about letters etc, i wanted to get one of those phonics fridge magnets, things like that. Will any of this cause confusion with what he might be learning at school?

does anyone have any suggestions re. books I can read on this? I also wonder about longer term language development, he will at some point need english classes that will keep him roughly in line with how he should be developing as a native english speaker. I know this won´t be for a good while yet but just really looking for any experience or advice anyone might have. i know several adults who have lived here all their life with english/spanish parents and their english is okay but heavily accented and foreign sounding and their written english is pretty poor. I also know others who pass for native speakers of either language - I just don´t know what creates the difference and how to make sure my son is in the latter group!

tia

DD (4.5) loves the Mantra Lingua range of books. They are bilingual and have a really good choice of stories. I usually google them when I want to peek at the website. She discovered them in the local library.

Books there aren't any I'm aware if that specifically answer you questions but Baker's 'A parent's and teacher's guide to bilingualism' is a pretty good starting point.

As far as encouraging native speaker level English goes have a look (in the future) for educational resources for native speakers - books, comprehension exercises and creative writing. Exposure to as much spoken English as possible (family, friends, DVDs) will keep his accent in line as will correcting errors when they appear and spending as much time immersed in English as possible.

It's better to learn to read in one language and then the other, but writing may start in both languages using the same alphabet almost simultaneously I find, as children figure out that letters go with sounds and try to recreate them. Start with simple words written though - name and simple consonant-vowel-consonant combinations.

Just an anecdote here about a friend of one of the DDs who spoke only Russian at home until age 5, and was learning to read and write in Russian (Cyrillic script and all) at the same time that she was trying to learn English basically by being thrown in at the deep end in school, and also being introduced to reading English, all at the same time. She succeeded really well and is now fluent in both languages.

Her English spelling isn't great and you can see that she mixes up words that sound similar, and tries to spell things completely phonetically, as Russian is a very straightforward language, phonetically speaking and I think she tries to follow the same principle in English. Not hearing English spoken by a native speaker at home has its drawbacks, but apart from some vowel sounds she blends right in with the other children's accent.

I think if there are people who are native speakers of both languages at home and the DS is exposed to both languages, then he will be able to learn to read in both -- children's brains can sort out languages and sounds better than adults'. The more exposure the better.

I was in the same situation as you OP, in that prior to nursery dd was definitely stronger in English than Italian. She's now 7 and in her second year at elementary school and her Italian has very much caught up.

I had the type of books/activity stuff that Frakk is talking about- if you look on sites like book depository (free postage too!) you can find all sorts of stuff fr early years literacy. Before dd started "proper" school, we used to do those.

Once she started school last year, where the first months are very heavily geared to reading and writing I realised she would be totally confused if we did anything at all with her English literacy at that time, Italian, like Spanish, is totally regular phonetically, so asking her to read English while her brain is hardwiring the regularities of Italian would have sent her (and me!) mad. So, I left the English, completely. Now at 7, she can read well in English, almost as well as in Italian (she's currently reading Malory Towers) her writing is still a bit phonetic in English (but from talking to English primary teachers so are a lot of monolingual children!)

I have no idea how the progress was made in English last year, because, as I said, we did nothing. (didn't have time with all the Italian homework) But it came, naturally. Probably the natural exposure that mathanxiety talks about.

The best way for me to teach English reading and writing was Jolly Phonics´ ! There are workbooks Dvds ,reading books in different stages.
I started with reading and writing 6 month before school started.
Though the German ABC is nearly the same only a few letter combinations are different, like ie, ee, some only exist in English ea.

My DC are bilingual (Welsh and English).

In school they learn to read in Welsh first, then in English from about 7. This seems to help stop things becoming confused.

Thanks for all of the replies, its all really helpful.. will check out some of those links/suggestions.