Jolly phonics in P1 - how do I deal with the completely different sounds in 2nd language?

[oricella]

That's it really; did you wait until DC was fluent in reading and writing in English? Or did you introduce alternative sounds in parallel & explain how the same letter/combo makes a different sound in another language? Or did you do something else altogether...

The phonics drive me nuts anyway as I reckon English pronounciations have so many exceptions that rules don't apply to begin with (yesterdays sounds was 'ie' - so how do I explain 'pie' is fine, 'cry' is't written that way and 'wie' in 2nd language sounds like 'wee' (or should that be wii?)

Not looking for any specific solutions, but keen to hear experiences from those of you who have gone through this process already

Depends on what the second lang is - most of the consonants will be the same, no?

Also, Jolly Phonics manuals exist in some other langs if you think the method would help - I have it in French.

Don't know the answer to your proper question, though - daughter too young to be fluent in either! So will wait for other responses.

I waited until they had grasped the basics in English; that seemed quite enough to be going on with at the time. In fact, I don't think I ever taught them to read Swedish: they picked it up themselves from reading the papers and milk packets on holiday.

My children picked up reading/writing in German (minority language) pretty easily once they were about age 7/8, after they'd mastered English at school. Yes, English is not very intuitive (lots of exceptions) whereas luckily German, as far as the vocabulary is concerned, is pretty intuitive and consistent. I don't know about other languages, but if I think back to my own childhood, I picked up new languages after I was fluent in my mother tongue fairly easily (with the help of lots of exposure to the respective languages).

So, I wouldn't worry about it now, let them focus on getting a good foundation in English and the other languages will follow on naturally imo.

Thanks all for sharing - I think we'll just take it as it comes, might try and get some dutch starter books next time we're over & maybe find out a bit more about reading methods - don't think they're big on phonics in NL

We're in Belgium and as our 6 year old is educated in French and this year is learning formal reading in French and has spent the last year learning French phonics using Planete des Alphas, I have completely avoided confusing her with English phonics and spellings. Once the French reading and writing is established a bit more, I'll make a bit of effort in English. I think it's probably wiser to allow the school language to be established first, then introduce the other languge later at home or at a saturday school if one is available.

My DCs go to English/French bilingual school.
In their case, the school uses to phonics to teach English reading and writing first.
Once that is established, they begin to learn to read French as well.
I think that once the English rules have been learnt, the French comes more easily.
DD is reading quite well in English now and I think the school will introduce her to French soon, so I will find out soon!

Many of my friends here have children in French language school who have never been taught to read and write in English, but have picked it up quite easily as they can already speak it and have studied reading and writing in French.

My daughter has an Italian childminder and the phonetics issue comes up in the names and the surprisingly large number of Italian phrases my daughter wants to write. What I have done is she knows the names of the letters and their sounds, and we talk a lot along the lines:

"letter c says k or s in English. In Italian it says k or ch".

In your example, they were doing the sound rather than the spelling, so I say things like:
"What says ai? i-e says ai in pie. letter y says ai in my. ai says ai in Maia." (the name of an Italian child she knows).

In the Jolly Phonics books this is exactly the approach that they do use, because as you say they have to learn the huge number of spelling variations in English so the concept that letters say different things is great for them to get.