Learning to read for multi-lingual child

[pena]

Hi Questions here to parents with multi-lingual children.

Which approaches did you take to introduce reading skills to your multi-lingual DC? Did you start with one language exclusively and progress to the other languages later, or did you do both/all simultaneously? and at which age did you start? which language did you choose to focus on supporting them - the school one vs the 2nd or 3rd? how do you minimise the confusion and keep their motivation?

Sorry so many questions, but DS is 5 yrs old and showing an interest in reading - I'm struggling as to the best way to help him. He goes to a French school and speaks French to DH and learns Mandarin with me. English we've kind of left to languish so he speaks as well as one can from watching Power Rangers.

Many thanks for sharing your experiences.

SSShakeTheChi, I'm pleased by their reading skills in English as I was concerned they'd never be truly bilingual (and worried myself daft over it) but I haven't got the balance right at all Their German reading (and vocab) is not as good as it should be and DD (4) speaks rotten German (lots of English words with a German accent) even though we've always done the OPOL.

But that, as they say, is another tale. Right now we're battling with the school over DS1 who's in the 4th Year and some days I just want to fly us all home.

Have to say, not knowing any other books, I quite liked the Fibel the boys had.

oh go on, frighten the daylights out of me...what's going on in 4th year?

Thanks for saying that about your dc's language development. I'm always so relieved when other people admit that this bilingual thing isn't just a piece of cake. For me, it's a constant struggle to keep dd's English progressing and to try and ensure her German is up to scratch. Some days I think "oh wow, her German is fantastic (compared to earlier days)" and then I have a little German friend over and see how huge the discrepancy still is.

I'm starting to understand now why dc from non German speaking families tend to do so badly at school here. I always found that odd but like you and Admylin, I put a huge effort into bringing her German along and what would a mother do who couldn't speak the language at all?

Oh yes, scare me too - we've got year 4 coming up this summer and I must admit I'm worried. I always sit with them to do their homework and explain things but they both get their endings wrong like they write den when it should be dem or ein when it should be einen and that is something I will never be able to help them with (even the question: Is it der, die or das, has to be looked up in the dictionary sometimes)

speaking of problems with schools and so on, wondering how Cocopopshater got along with her battle in Bavaria. Anyone know?

(Sorry bit of a hijack there)

In dd's Fibel we got the sentence "Er hat niemand gesehen" and I would have written niemandEN. I think that's one thing you never entirely master as a foreigner, Lyn. I've noticed that dd struggles over those kind of endings when she's reading. She'll just say "ein" and I always have to say "check the ending", it's "einem" or whatever.

Considering they were born here and are going through the German education system, I would have thought they'd have no problem with all that but they really do , don't they?

Yes, that scares me most, because I will never master those endings even if I stay here all my life - I've given up trying infact. I hope the dc manage somehow.
You sound alot better than me, I never know when to use einem! Worst thing is I am/was good at languages, spoke fluent french in the old days and can understand a lot of spanish, italian and portugese, hindi and urdu but german is too hard to ever be able to say I am fluent as in nearly perfect at it.

well maybe the language part of your brain has run out of storage space! I think you can be very chuffed with what you have already. Aren't many people who can get along in 7 languages , cripes

I hope not, I still want to learn a few more languages. Regarding our kids learning to read, maybe that is the easy bit and the hard stuff we really have to worry about comes later.

essay writing is going to be fun, that's for sure. Do they do much of that here though?

I'm going to get a tutor to practice that though when the time comes. So many pitfalls. I wouldn't really feel up to training dd for that and correcting mistakes, improving phraseology and so forth. Think you really need to be an educated native speaker to deal with that.

Never thought of that. Now I feel reassured, we can get a tutor for german. I suppose it would help if they do homework with german friends too - trouble is in ds's class I don't think he has any germans to be friends with!

SSSandy, well, i'm a native German speaker and I would have said 'niemanden gesehen'.

Am pleased to report that dd1 (7, OPOL, living in UK) is really doing well with her German reading. I got her a few easy readers from amazon.de, and seeing her progress is just lovely. Also got a few German grammar & spelling class 2 workbooks (she loves these for maths here so thought I'd give it a try) and that's been a great success, too. Her German is still not a patch on her English of course, but at least she can read it quite fluently now and we're finally working on some things in a more structured way - she finds 'eine', 'einer' & 'eines' really difficult for example.

geekgrrl, when your dd makes those ein, eine, einem etc mistakes do you just correct her or do you try and explain it? If so how do you explain it? If you have any good book tips for that sort of thing it would be great for the likes of us with kids in german schools.

There is alot of critisism in Germany about foreigners not learning the language which I agree with to a certain extent but it is such a hard langauge to learn - I think alot of foreigners just aren't capable of learning it fully.

I correct her when she does it whilst we're doing the work, but the rest of the time I let everything go - she doesn't speak much German to me (I speak German and she replies in English most of the time) so don't want to put her off IYSWIM. I sometimes repeat what she said in a corrected version but not in an 'instructive' kind of way, more as part of the conversation.
I have tried to explain the ein/e thing but does it sink in? Does it chuff...

Message withdrawn

pitchounette, I think that would just put my children off speaking German completely. I guess it's a good idea at school, but I really can't see that it would work when it's parent - child communication...

Yes I agree, I think you have to be very carefull how you go about teaching at home as they dc can easily go off the whole thing! Anything with games or quiz type exercises are good or alot of the internet stuff like funbrain (I think) and that sort of thing.

Geekgrrl, I am pleased to hear of your dd's progress with her German.

I am very interested in your experience as we are in a similar position: we are raising our dd (5 in April) bilingually (opol) in German/English and she has just started Reception. As she is just learning to read and write in English, I feel I don't want to confuse her, so I am only talking to her in German but am wary of introducing written German to her.

When did you start reading with her in German? Did it not confuse her a little initially? Have you got any specific books that you recommend?

SSSandy, I would also have said 'niemanden gesehen'.

ooh gg and am..... so I was right and the book was wrong?! That makes me feel SO incredibly smug, you wouldn't believe it.

You know what I really don't get is why with annasmami's and geekgirl's dc, who live in the UK, English is no problem; whereas our dc (Admylin and Fink) who are living in German speaking countries are having so many problems with German. I mean obviously they're fluent but definitely not mother tongue standard. I can't help feeling German should be coming much more naturally to them.

I'm beginning to think, Finknottle, that you're right about them seeing German as a foreign language somehow and not a second mother tongue. I'm also starting to think I will have to look into some grammar teaching (sigh) along the lines of those workbooks Geekgirl is using and really practice those case endings and things as you would when you learn German as a foreign language.

SSShake, you hit the nail on the head there and it's hard not to worry when the language affects their school-work (and thus their self-esteem) and the identity question.

DS2's teacher (wonderful, taught DS1 too in Y1 & 2 so knows us well but sadly gone now) called me in last year and told me he was regressing, translating things in his head from English and his cases were often wrong. I was worried but she was so laid back and breezily suggested we play more in German. Board games, card games, any game where you sit and play so the atmosphere's calm, the child doesn't think it's school/homework and you can practise easily. DH and DD play snap with picture cards and she learns loads more words and sees and says them over again in the game. We've let that slide lately too and it's so quick and easy.

Am trying to think what would be good for articles and cases, that would help mine too. Will let you know.

Have we rather taken over this thread? Might start another later as I fear I was scaring Admylin with the horrors of Y4 and must reassure her.

BTW were you v windblown last night?

Just tried to find my scare-mongering post and saw it was you too - sorry!

I must go and fetch DD now but will try to explain briefly - never one of my strong points. The whole secondary school thing overshadows the first half of Y4 and it's all climaxing now. The more you know, the better armed you are and I'd liken it to starting primary school, or nursery for that matter. It seems to overwhelm everything for a while and be the most important thing ever and things settle you look back and can't quite believe it.

DS1 is in the middle of tests at an educational psychologist and it's all a bit fraught. Poor lad, he's had a tough time so it's not just Y4, it's us

That's really interesting that your DS2 began translating from English. Apart from the odd transfer problem like with/without, i.e. "are we going out Daddy?" meaning "without" or before it used to be adding the with part to the German - "mitohne", i.e. "Gehen wir mitohne Papa?" - I haven't noticed dd do this. However, this may well lie ahead.

Doesn't sound good all those 4th year worries. I know most parents get in a real state about it and it is so important for their future, isn't it? You can't help worrying. Are you concerned they won't give him the recommendation for the gymnasium? Do they want to keep him back a year? Doesn't sound good, no wonder you feel like upping it at times. Good idea with the thread, let's start a year 4 in Germany thread! Think we really need one.

The storm had run out of steam by the time it got so far east. There wasn't much damage in Berlin and it took a long time getting here. Wasn't till 11 pm or so that anything much happened. Much ado about nothing in our case in fact, though sadly people died in other parts of Germany. Wasn't it awful that 2 year old being killed by a balcony door flying about?

pena, to get back a bit to your original question... Tracked down and read quite a few research papers on this over the weekend. They were mostly concerned with Spanish/English in the US and other languages in Canada. There was no clear consensus on what was best (as you'd expect!).

Some studies claim it is possible and advisable to teach both languages at once because a dc cannot achieve good reading ability in a second language unless they have at least a comparable level in reading their mother tongue (of course I cannot say whether this is right). So that's an argument for that approach. It was recommended to teach reading of different languages at different times of the day. So in your case, French at school in the morning and Mandarin say in the afternoons.

Obviously if the languages are close in spelling, have words with similar roots (like say Spanish/French and English with words of Latin origin) which are pronounced diffently in the various languages, dc will inevitably sometimes get confused.

One study recommends saying things along the lines : this is a French h, this is an English h. Dunno how well this works, never tried it myself.

I do think with two languages so completely different (Mandarin and French), you could try teaching both at once.

It seems to be one of those things you have to work out for yourself. From what I read, many studies discourage teaching reading of more than 1 language at a time, so hard to say what the correct approach will be for you and your dc.

SSSandy, I think my dc have no problem with English because dh is English, and they've always attended nursery here too from very early on.
annasmami, regarding the reading - I started off with Lesen in Silben - got it from my mum who was a primary school head teacher in Germany for many years, so I'd hope she knows what she's talking about . The book starts with the basics and progresses slowly to a basic reading level, and was the only 'formal' reading book we looked at for a few years. I started when dd was in Y1 I think. Until recently (she's now 7 and in Y3) she struggled with fluency and even the very easy readers ('Lesestufe 1' on amazon) were a real struggle so I didn't persevere (I'm not the most patient person!). It seems to have finally clicked now and she's suddenly gone very quickly from the level 1 books to reading the 'Lesestufe 2' kind of books with fluency.
She got the idea of letters sounding differently in German very early on - I guess to a bilingual child it will not come as much of a surprise. I would not have encouraged her quite so much with her German reading had she struggled with reading English - as it happens, she always found reading very easy in English so I didn't worry about distracting from the obviously more important task of becoming proficient at reading English.
I am also rather glad that I don't have to deal with the reverse situation. At least German is phonetically very straightforward.

Geekgrrl, thank you for those tips and the books for learning to read in German!

On the general subject or 'multilingual reading' I have found the following, interesting point:

"Preschoolers who speak one language can usually recite the alphabet and spell their names but cannot read without the help of pictures. But bilingual preschoolers can read sooner because they are able to recognize symbolic relations between letters/characters and sounds without having visual objects," said psychologist Ellen Bialystok, Ph.D., of York University and author of the new study."

While this doesn't help us in deciding when to introduce our children to reading in a second language, it implies that its probably good to start sooner than later.

SSShake, I do think that German, while it's easier to read (more phonetic, less exceptions than in English...), is more difficult to learn in respect of the grammar. So it is probably very normal that your children are finding the grammar tricky. While my dcs are doing very well in English (dh also speaks to them in English), time will tell how 'native' their German will sound...