Learning to read in English and German at the same time?

[SSSandy]

I chose not to send dd to a bilingual school and I'm really happy with the German school she attends but I'm not sure how to tackle reading.

The school is teaching phonemes so they look at a picture and learn the sound, sometimes represented by a letter of the alphabet, sometimes just by a symbol. So they'll say Lama - la la (sign like a V with an arm pointing to the right), Kamel - ka ka (letter K). The teacher then writes something on the board using a mixture of these signs/letters and the children guess out the sentence.

This is how she explained she'll begin teaching them to read, then they move on to reading books just in the Roman alphabet.

Not sure I like this sign business TBH but ok keeping an open mind. So I asked should multilingual dc put back reading in other languages and concentrate on German whilst they're learning this system or should we continue reading to them in their mother tongues and start teaching them to read say in English at home at the same time.

Didn't get a clear answer. We're definitely just a small minority in the class, so don't think she'd thought about it beforehand.

So what do I do? Will she get confused learning to read in English at the same time? Difficult just to read out to her because she's at a stage where she'll recognise words in the text and start spelling them out anyway.

I'm a bit confused at your description of how they're are learning to read, but
it's similar for us as I'm German and my dd is in school here. What I did was not talk about reading in German at all last year when dd was in reception, just supported her in learning to read in English. She is gradually working it out herself how to read German, and I help her when she asks. I think she will get the hang of it in time, but I feel it's important that she doesn't get confused, so I don't push it. HTH

Maybe I'm a bit confused about it myself!

Well where they have phonemes like SCH or SH in English, the teacher uses a symbol (like a back to front half moon followed by a fork and a square), some phonemes are just represented by the letter of the alphabet they correspond to S - ess.

The logic behind it is presumably that some phonemes are represented by different letters of the alphabet in various words. Just as say an E can have different sounds depending on where it is in a word. That kind of thing. So she wants them to acquire an ear for the various sounds and uses a helping stone method of symbols and letters to represent them before moving on to the actual reading of books.

Don't plan on working with these symbols etc at home myself! (tugging out hair at the roots emoticon) English and German are not too different but some things are pronounced very differently so I wondered how this works unless you teach the reading of both languages seperately somehow.

dd1 is gradually working it out herself from her knowledge of speaking German that some things have to be read differently, so for example would see the word Musik and first read it in an English way and then realize how it's pronounced in German and read it that way. I'm just letting her explore it bit by bit by herself atm.

Thanks that's reassuring. So whilst she was learning to read English at school, did you continue reading to her in German at night?

yes every day

Emkana, that sounds very reassuring. I also speak German to my daughter who has just started reception class in England. And I have been asking myself the same question: how do I support her learning English (including reading with her etc.) while continuing to 'communicate' to her in German (including reading good night stories etc). You appear to suggest that that approach works well?

As far as I can tell so far, it's going well!

I figure that in the long run that reading in the other language will sort itself out really - they will do it in time once they get the hang of reading as such. After all, we managed to read in English at some stage, didn't we?

Learning to read English and German together works fine -- that's how I did it!

I think (would need to check though) that my mother had started to teach me before I started school -- certainly I could read English before German school starting age, and then got to school and found I could read German too, much to the teacher's disgust.

The two languages are similar enough for it not to be a conflict -- the few minor spelling mismatches like Z or SCH/SH iron themselves out once you're past the very slow s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g o-u-t stage of reading, which doesn't generally last that long. You may find anglicisms or Germanisms creeping into spelling or pronunciation, but eventually that will sort itself out, although I am occasionally still caught out by phrases such as "I overheard it" vs. "Ich habe das überhört". Dh claims to have once heard me say (in English) 'Please make the light on', but I think he's lying.

But a word of warning: decide early on which language you're going to teach her to tell the time in, and stick to it. I learnt in English and German simultaneously, and the results were not pretty. I still have to do a double-take when someone says 'half nine' before my brain will compute whether that means 8.30 or 9.30, and as for 'Drei viertel sieben', well, let's just not go there. I have hideous childhood memories of suffering full-blown brain freeze over problems in the format of, "Little Johnny leaves the house at half past seven. His journey takes three quarters of an hour, what time does he get to school?". Still brings me out in a sweat today.

Oooh frogs my dd's do so many of those anglicisms! The worst one which I fear they will never get is when translated as wenn not als. But also "Warte fuer mich" or, my favourite, "Wir sind aus Milch rausgerannt!"

I still don't get what dreiviertel sieben means, because how you tell the time is a regional thing as well. I think what I would say instead is viertel vor sieben - much more logical, IM not so HO.

oh emkana, that's cheered me up no end!

The viertel sieben, drei viertel neun thing really gets on my nerves tbh! dh does it. And I still confuse wenn and als. That's about the only error I still make on a regular basis.

dh and I were once driving on the motorway and were stuck behind someone dawdling along - I said 'kannst du den nicht übernehmen?'

How are you foundintranslation?

Oh god, I remember my mother getting so cross with us for saying, "Warte für mich", and "Er ist ja nur sieben'. I also remember intermittently not being able to work out why, "Wir sind mit dem Zug nach Berlin gegangen" was not okay.

And little sis once reduced a roomful of German adults to helpless hysterics by complaining loudly about some non-functioning toy, "Also das fährt mich wirklich um die Kurve".

I'm OK atm - thanks for asking .
Was really really really low for a couple of days (it hit me on Mon) but am getting on with what's to be got on with now and feeling fairly normal again. Bedtime is not nice though, so am distracting myself right now by chatting on here (and laughing at your dds' and my anglicisms ).

frogs.

FIT, I think of you often. Unfortunately I am so wrapped up in all my own worrying that I haven't managed to e/mail you or anything. I really hope that life will get better for you soon!

thankyou em - likewise!

OOh please talk to me about drei viertel sieben and viertel neun!

I was recently chatting to the two German teachers (not mother tongue German speakers) at school and mentioned this, they looked at me as though I was bonkers, said they'd never heard of it, that was absolutely not Hoch Deutsch, and must be part of the ridiculous dialect I picked up whilst living there. (I did live/work in deepest darkest Schwaebia!) So tell me, how widely used/understood is it?

dh, who is from Brandenburg, does it. We currently live in Deepest Darkest schwaben but, tbh, I'm not sure what they say here . We learned the Hochdeutsch 'viertel vor sieben' variant at school.

I'm not sure how widely used it is. I'm from the Rhineland and it's not used there, my mum is from the North and it's not used there. I think it's used in Southern parts and in the East. I have a friend from Dresden who uses it.

I use it because I grew up with my grandmother who is from East Prussia. My extended family in Berlin use it too. All my German linguistics books are in storage, so I can't look up the distribution, but I know it's one of those markers that linguists used to demarcate dialect regions (like baaath/bath in English).

Do you teach them to write numbers and letters English style as well or is it just enough if they recognise them and use the German style? Wonder how the bilingual schools deal with this actually.

Do you mean as in German-style loopy handwriting and crossing 7s etc? I'd go with whatever the school uses.

Yeah that's what I mean, that the 1 looks a bit like an English 7 with the slash in front, the extra curve on the lowercase r and n etc.

Wonder if the bilingual schools just use the German system.

my experience is the same as emkana's - dd is 7 and a very competent reader in English, she can read German and whilst she is lagging far behind her English reading capabilities, she is improving all the time, so no worries here.

I've got a German phonics reading book which she really likes reading, and that's been very helpful for teaching her the letter combinations that sound completely different in German. Maybe getting some Oxford Reading Tree packs would be a good idea, SSandy?

They do the signing phonics thing in the UK, too now.

(I have no idea what time dreiviertel sieben is, btw - enlighten me!). Isn't it some weird regional thing to say?

I'm hoping it's 6.45 because that's what I would mean if I said it!

Oxford reading trees - thanks for the tip. I'll have a look on amazon and see if I can find out something about it. Is the standard learning material in the UK then?

That's interesting with the signs, then the teacher is just up to date and I'm behind the times!

yes, the ORT scheme is the one most widely used in the UK.
You can get all sorts of supporting material, DVDs, games etc, and book packs aren't too expensive.