Books for children learning to read Russian (alphabet and the basics)

[SSSandy2]

Can anyone recommend a nice book for children (who speak Russian) learning to read/write the language? I can get it sent over from Russia. Dd will be attending Russian school from this Saturday but I'd like something to work with from home to, so she gets a little practice every day.

Thanks!

SSSandy2 - I have no knowledge, I'm afraid. However, a cousin of my partner adopted a little girl (now 7) from Russia and has always sent her to Russian school at the Russian Embassy here in Paris on Wednesdays - is your DD doing Russian at the Russian Embassy in Berlin?

Hi Anna

She's going to a private Russian school all day Saturday (the embassy doesn't hold those classes here to the best of my knowledge). I expect in France they hold classes on Wednesday since it isn't a regular school day.

There are classes I think 2 x week at the Haus der Russischen Kultur (cultural institute) which is probably the equivalent of what your cousin's dd is doing. However it's inconvenient for us in the afternoon when the school day is so long and the institute is on the other side of town, so I opted for the Saturday school.

How is she coming along?

I saw the little girl in question on Saturday and chatted to her father about it.

They have always had a Russian nounou so that their daughter would learn Russian at home. What they are finding is that now she is in the second year of French (monolingual, normal system) primary school, her Russian is no longer making much headway - it seems to be arrested at a baby stage. So - fluent, but not moving as head as fast as her French. They are looking for alternative ways of boosting her Russian but they are not fluent Russian speakers themselves so it's hard going - Russia is a long way away for them. But they are determined not to let their adoptive daughter grow up and be unable to trace her roots and speak to her biological parents if one day she so chooses, which I think is very admirable.

In my experience (well such as it is), dc need contact to other children who speak that language. In Berlin there are a lot of Russian immigrants and, generally speaking, they seem to place a great deal more value on education for their dc than families here tend to do. As a result, there are all kinds of activities (choirs, music, art, ballet, chess,etc) available for Russian speaking children.

Perhaps the parents could ask at the Russian Embassy school about other activities, or language permitting, the other parents? It all seems to be word of mouth here.

LOL SSSandy2 - all those activities fit my clichéd vision of a cultured Russian childhood very well indeed .

I'm not sure that the parents in question have a minute left at the end of their week for activities with Russian children... but I will chat to them about it when I see them.

BBBlimey SSSandy you've a bright spark there
Learning Russian through German - wow.
Seems a long time since I battled po-russki & always wondered how (foreign) children cope with deciphering the alphabet.
Know one girl in England who's trilingual-ish but her Russian dad said he's despaired of ever getting her to write or read much because she does struggle with the written side.
Off to help ds2 learn for his next dictation - only 3 weeks since the last one And writing nouns with upper case is something my boys seem genetically (or linguistically) incapable of doing... Lots of upper case verbs tho'

Ugh dictation, you poor thing. I know ALL about the capitalisation struggle, sigh. Dd was writing a story (basic) for German homework last night and I would have liked her sentences to at least begin with a capital, never mind the nouns. She began writing English using capital letters for nouns because she knew it from German. Now she no longer does that in English but she doesn't do it in German anymore either!

Actually one thing I DO like about the new school is no dictation in German.
I was getting really excited about having eluded it. However I stupidly read an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine the other night, saying there is no other way for children to effectively learn to write German properly, etc. Usual depressing stuff. So went out and bought some books for teaching it.

In my experience, these Russian teachers are all very gung ho and dedicated, so I expect she'll more or less get there in the end. She doesn't really need to write the language brilliantly but reading it would be good for improving her vocabulary and the two skills sort of go hand-in-hand I think.

Finky, BTW she's only learning the Russian because she's half-Russian (in case it seems a weird thing for her to be doing!)

Would any of these books help?

We have the First 1000 Words; a Belorussian boy stays with us for a month every summer and DH uses it when he's here.

It's just labels though, no sentence structure or grammar IIRC.

Thanks Wendy, not sure if that might be a bit overloaded for her. Dad said me the German equivalent once but she never really worked with it. Maybe she was just too small. What I had in mind was something where you practice writing one letter per page or so and then some words that begin with that letter, like the handwriting workbooks you get for English.

That's interesting that you have a boy from Belorussia to stay each summer. Great. How's dh's Russian coming along?

SSSandy - how lovely Didn't know but then no reason I should have Love Russian myself and wish I'd kept it up.
Didn't think it was weird, just thought, blimey, she's bright - or should that be G&T

The Belorussian boy is part of a Children from Chernobyl group - he's been coming since he was 7, next year he will be 12 and that will be his last visit

DH's Russian is very basic - it's such a hard language to pronounce, let alone read - their alphabet is so complicated!

I went to school in Germany and had an inspirational teacher for Russian. My class were the guinea pigs for the text books he wrote. His name is Heiner Zeller and his books are on amazon.de.

I went on to become a teacher of German and Russian (in England) so he must have done something right!

I'll have a dig through my resources later and see if I can find something suited to primary age.

Thanks very much MamaP. I have to race off now but I will try a google tonight and see if anything comes up.

That's great that you and your family have been taking him in Wendy. How is he health-wise?

Oh, he's fine, Sandy - this particular organisation (Friends of Chernobyl's Children) concentrates on bringing over children who are reasonably healthy in order to boost their immune systems.

They all live in Mogilev which is a fairly polluted industrial city anyway, even without the Chernobyl fallout, so they get a month of cleaner air (there is a cement factory here ) and good food. They also see a dentist and an optician (services donated) and go back with masses of winter clothes and new shoes.

What an excellent organisation, I've been having a look round the website Wendy. I'd never heard of it before.

Hi Sandy,
There are some activities on www.quia.com. I have not used the Russian one specifially though, but a colleague put some activities on the German area and the younger kids loved them.

I would be wary of getting stuff from Russia, TBH, IME the teaching is quite different to what a 'Westerner' would be used to.

You can buy rechtschreibungsheft from Karstadt/Kaufhof type place and these are useful for practising the script. I am happy to scan some handwriting pages for you if you want.

It will be as fun as her teacher makes it really, and the most important thing at the beginning is recognising the letters/sounds, so simple repetitive web based activities are good for that and copying the letters.

Thanks very much MamaP, I'll have a look around that site and see how I get on with it!