I'm curious about how people do when teaching how to read in a multilingual home (3 languages).
All our languages share same alphabet , but pronunciation is different.
Did you start with only one? two at the same time? how did it go?
We have books in all three languages, and we do OPOL (I just learned this term in fact xD), so when the book is in another language, I actually don't "read" it but translate it to my mother tongue. Maybe it is a bit confusing for them?
@chaolonggang In my house we only speak two languages but what we've done has seemed to work for our 2 year old!
We introduced both alphabets at the same time, one parent using one alphabet and the other using the second language's alphabet (both share the same letters, just different pronunciations). So far my daughter knows both alphabets very well, same with numbers by sight. I read to her predominantly in my language while my husband uses his language only and she is starting to recognize "sight words" in both languages. When I was a teacher, I taught a dual-language kindergarten class and taught my students reading in one language in the morning and the second language in the afternoon. That division helped a lot. I'm planning on doing something similar with my daughter. I'll set aside time to read in one language with one parent and do the same with second language using the other parent. Knowing she speaks in one language with dad vs mom has seemed to really help LO. It's all developing very naturally I think. Anyways, hope some of this can be applied to your situation!
@jgoss Thanks for the input! it makes sense to also separate one language per parent for the "language literacy" too. And if in your experience learning to read in two languages at the same time is something kids can generally handle...it sounds good! We'll try!
@aremusegun They're 3 years old. "Read" is maybe a big word at this stage . I was just wondering cause they are interested in letters and the other day one asked me to write a couple of words. I was happily explaining some rules, and suddenly realized those rules don't apply to half of the words they know...
@chaolonggang We decided to go with phonics as an introduction to English reading as it's much more confusing with less well defined rules IMO.
My idea was that German reading would be taught by school, but actually I found he just generalised the skill of reading into German. He did need it pointed out that things like w and v are pronounced differently but that was a one time thing, and then he was away.
If your kids are learning to read I'd suggest sticking to the language of the book so that you can follow along the words with your finger. But I don't kn ow that it's that much of an issue, especially if you tell them that you're translating this book, not reading it.
@chaolonggang I envy you with your shared alphabet. We are doing English and Japanese. My kids are 5 and 7 and their Japanese (community language) reading is going pretty well, but while they know their alphabet, it is lagging.
Verbally they are fine, we pretty much stick to minority language at home, but my wife slips up when she gets upset. I love seeing my kids faces when mom switches to Japanese. It's like "oh crap! Mom's really mad now!" But I digress.
We read a lot of stories with them, and they have some reading textbooks we got from Amazon, and the local library has some books in English. But in general we let Japanese reading progress naturally (mostly at school) and keep our home filled with English language texts and books.
Also the Nintendo Switch has been amazing. The oldest plays Pokemon and the Switch has the ability to freely change languages. So if he wants to progress in the game, he's gotta up his reading.
, but pronunciation is different.
. Anyways, hope some of this can be applied to your situation!