Bilingual?

[StressedWorriedSkye]

Is anyone practicing bilingual routines with their children?
Did it work for you, and how did it go?
I’ve heard the advice: one person, one language. I speak English, and the father is Dutch — so he’s supposed to speak Dutch to our child, but he often switches between English and Dutch.
Curious how others handle this!

Can I also recommend that you have age appropriate books in both languages and teach them to read and write in both languages,

I've taught for a great many years and was stunned to find that many of my students were functionally illiterate in their first language.

They spoke absolutely fluent Urdu, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese or whatever it was at home but no one taught them to read or write in it. They learned to read in school in England and that was the language they were literate in. I didn't realise this until I would ask students 'how do you say Good evening, nice to meet you?' in your home language and say 'Can you write it down for me?' Lots of them were really uncomfortable and said they didn't know how to write it, which hadn't occurred to me before this.

I suspect a lot of their parents felt it was the schools job to teach them to read, and send books home, which we did of course. Just not in Lithuanian. (Substitiute any other language) And parents didn't have or buy children's books of their own.