Is it normal for a multilingual child to learn to read slower?

[aldredian]

@smallf If you look at https://ialpasoc.info/faqs/faqs-from-the-multilingual-affairs-committee/, it's actually not true that they speak later. It MAY seem like that at first but multilingual children still meet the expected milestones. I'm a bit disappointed your doctor said that but I suppose he's also preparing IN CASE it seems like your child is talking later so you won't stress.

I have met a little girl exposed to 5 languages (Thai, Teo-Chew, Shanghainese, Mandarin and Cantonese - and English) and she was speaking earlier than my son who was exposed to 2. Every kid is different.

 

[smallf]

@aldredian Oh that’s cool! Yeah he’s probably preparing me in case she does speak later. With my anxiety, it’s better that way lol

 

[pebbles73]

@tomorrow My family is 2nd generation multilingual, my siblings and I were, and our kids are. Our cousins we grew up with are also mutlilingual in different languages to us. The age at which children become receptive to speech and to reading can vary greatly. In my family there's been kids starting to read at 3yro to starting at 7 or 8yro. With speech from beggining in the first year to not a word until 4yro.

The language anyone starts with doesn't seem to make a difference at all, and as adults there is no obvious advantage in terms of academic achievement or lifestyle between early and late bloomers.

Keep in mind that even between identical twins raised in the same household there can be variations in the rate at which those twins hit milestones.

Most likely your pediatrician is not concerned because they have a great deal of experience with a wide range of young children and can see that there is nothing amiss.

If I were you I would just be supportive and accepting and relax, it sounds like you're doing what you can, exposing her to the opportunity to learn and she has simply been more receptive to math and speech, just give her the opportunity to learn to read periodically and if she doesn't honestly nothing is wrong. She sounds very accomplished for a young child.

 

[aldredian]

@tomorrow Wouldn't she learn to read French at school? Are they not teaching her that there? Have you chatted with her teacher at school whether they're worried? That's where I would start.

Anecdotally, I was taught to read in both Chinese and English at around 4 years old. My mum said I took it on very quickly. I then learned to read Japanese at age 6. But then again, apparently I was always pretty good with languages. Every kid is different.

Given her age, I'd talk to her teacher. Maybe for Chinese, you need to hire a tutor to help there. Are you teaching her PinYin or ZhuYin? My mum taught me ZhuYin and we just went from there. The rest was watching a lot of TV and given Chinese TV all have subtitles, I recognised a lot of characters just by watching a lot of TV.

 

[tomorrow]

@aldredian

Anecdotally, I was taught to read in both Chinese and English at around 4 years old. My mum said I took it on very quickly. I then learned to read Japanese at age 6. But then again, apparently I was always pretty good with languages. Every kid is different.

You sound like a linguistic genius, I'm not. I grew up in China, but learning to write was also hard for me at 6. Her school is more focused on verbal communication in French and slow at learning to read. They don't have any homework so I don't think her teacher really minds their reading level. And from my perspective, she can't read any French

 

[all]

@tomorrow Your child is very young still. A 5yo should not have homework. Talk to the teacher and ask about expectations. In many places, even in the rest of Canada, 5yo are not expected to know how to read.

Things need to click for children. It will happen. Considering your high involvement there is no risk that your child won't be able to read.

 

[animore]

@tomorrow I think Chinese is quite unlike many other languages in that one really needs at least a few years of education to be able to read and write. The ABCs can be learned quite quickly by comparison.

French orthography (the way things are spelled) is also much more intuitive than even English. Once you learn the rules of French orthography you will never misspell a word, unlike English.

I’d be more focused on making sure she can write Chinese if that is important to you. French and English will come via the school system

 

[all]

@animore Uh? French orthography is not easy hence why they do so many "dictées" there are so many similar sounds spelled differently. That is just not a true statement.

 

[seamuskaxen]

@all It is a true statement because once you learn the combinations and how they sound, everything is much more intuitive than english. You have many different ways to pronounce an “e”. In french you know how an “e” sounds based on what accents or letter goes after it. You don’t get that in English

 

[all]

@seamuskaxen I could see how learning to read is possibly easier but French is not Spanish. Spanish you won't misspell. French orthography is hard and many folks graduate high school with bad spelling. I mean they're even changing the rules for plural it's that hard.

 

[tomorrow]

@animore Oh boy I don’t want to emphasize on reading Chinese right now. May be when she’s older like 9-10.

 

[aldredian]

@tomorrow Oh - I really don't think I'm a linguistic genius. I just like languages and I generally find it easy to recognise patterns so I think that's generally what helped me a lot.

Writing in Chinese is hard - full stop - lol. My writing sucks - I type.

I think I would just talk to the school and see if they're concerned and specifically ask them about reading. Perhaps focus on one language first since I feel it's all the same concept. Learning to read in French naturally leads to English. PinYin is also following the same concept as well before they get to recognising Chinese characters.

 

[chesterjohn]

@tomorrow My son was very similar (English and Japanese at home, Spanish at school- then we moved to japan so although English is his strongest spoken language he's never been to an English speaking school). Right around his 6th birthday he'd had hardly any progress in English reading. He knew his letters and the basic phonic sounds but really struggled to blend and hated whenever I tried to get him to practice.

What worked for us was Khan Academy kids (free educational app). In the app library we started reading the early grade readers (lots of repetitive 3 letter words). We committed to practicing twice a day (we'd read one book in the morning and then the same one again in the evening).

At the start it was painfully slow and he really struggled. But now after about 3 months now and his progress has been amazing. He can read all the early grade readers easily and were gradually adding more books from different categories. He's still got a long way to go (and still hates when I try to get him to practice with paper books) but I'm so so pleased with his progress.

 

[docbrown1985]

@tomorrow I don’t know if there is any normal.

My parents didn’t know English when I was little. We only spoke Spanish at home. I was exposed to English at church 1 hr once a week and PBS shows. In first grade I started in the reading group for level 4 along with one other girl. Everyone else was level 1.

Now I have two girls. 2 and 3 years old. The three year old, the one who got 100% of our attention for a year (almost) has been able to read simple words for almost a year, now she reads more. Both have been raised with mostly Spanish but also English and both understand both languages completely.

I also have a cousin who has an English speaking mom and Spanish speaking dad and because of his speech delay they chose to not teach him Spanish anymore.

My two year old has an expressive speech delay and I’ll be damn if anyone tries to perpetuate the lie that multiple languages causes speech delays. She understands everything, we put her in speech (with bilingual SPL) and although she’s not where her sis was a year ago, she has advanced so much.