Teaching to read in 2 languages

[Nadenka]

Hello! We are a Russian-Norwegian family. Since my daughter was born, I speak Russian (my native lang.) to her and my husband speaks Norwegian (his native lang.). We live in Norway. My daughter spends more time with me during the day, so its natural for me to start to teach her to read in Russian.
I wonder when I should start to teach her to read in Norwegian? Of course, the best is if my husband who speaks Norwegian to her could also have "reading"-lessons in Norwegian with her , but I'a afraid my daughter is tired in the evenings when he comes home from work. So in practice if someone has to teach her to read in Norwegian - it'll be me! At the same time I'm afraid my daughter'll be confused.
Does anyone have experience of teaching to read in 2 different languages at the same time? Or should i wait with a second lang-ge?

[momtoo]

Why don't you try to ask your husband to "record" himself reading norwegian books so you and your daughter can "read along" with his recording? My son and I read along audio tapes of Spanish children's books and it seems to work fine (my husband and I can understand Spanish but are not native speakers).

[bill7867]

Hello Nadia,
my native language is russian as well, my second language is english and my third language is german.
i am teaching my two children(1,5 and 3,5) 3 languages. over time i tryed this and that and i know by now that they are not going to be confused, they are going to be fine and will speak  3 languages.
 i tryed a couple diferent things but lately i have doen my reading program this way:
     when i flash the cards i do it in 3 dif, rooms, russian in the bedroom, english in the office and german in the livingroom. with a little break in between.
     when i use LR i teach mostly in english, then i say ,now we are going to read in russian, and go on to the russian presintations, and if they still want some more i go on to german.
   when i speak to them i use mostly russian but switch to english some times.
   if i teach them about something, i say it in english, say ,this is a dog(then i say the word dog in russian) and then in eglish again. and i resently started to play a game like saying words in 3 languages.if we talk about the tree or something then i just say it in english language , then i say it in russian, and then i add that in german it sounds like that..
i do not use german as much as i wanted, but i use LR, i have some books and dvds we sing lots of german songs and i formed a little group for parents who wants to teach german to their child and get together 2 times a month, use flash cards and games. we try to speak as much german as possible to the kids. and sometimes i say something to them in german, then shortly trunslate in eglish  and again in german.
do not worry, she is not going to be confused,she will figure it out faster then you think:)
my son is fluint in both languages perfectly, and my daughter can say many words in two languages.
even if you think you dont have a perfect way she will pick up with ease as many languages as youll give her:-)
Inessa

[Skylark]

We do three different languages, -- English, Russian and Mandarin, it is difficult to talk about results just yet, my daughter is still very young, but from the experience of my husband's family I can say that teaching a few different languages simultaneously if done VERY EARLY IN LIFE would not confuse the child and in fact will be the most effective. My husband and his 6 brothers and sisters grew up speaking English, Cantonese, Portugese and Italian. And it only helped them, not hindered them.  I think your daughter will do great with both Russian and Norvegian, and I am sure if you would decide to introduce another language or two it will only help her later in life. It seems you are very consistent in Russian, which is great ( btw, we are enjoying your LR Russian categories!), I sometimes forget and have to remind myself to speak Russian more to my daughter. Having some LR categories really helped us a lot, as she LOVES LR...

[rvillane]

How the flash cards method can be applied in 2 different languages?  my son is 15 days old and I´m preparing myself to teach him to read in 2 languages with flash cards for English and Spanish but not sure how both should be presented during sessions.

I was considering to prepare English flash cards in one color ( green) and Spanish cards in a different color (red).  Also, avoiding sessions of both languages at the same time.

Any suggestion or feedback to this idea ?

thanks

[kirthika]

I don't know about writing.I stay in Bangalore,India ,where many languages are used in daily life.like 1.native language 2. English,teaching medium 3. Hindi common Indian language 4. Kannada our state language.In some houses servants speaks their own native language with babies.so no need to worry about confusions in language.my son can understand 3 languages in this age.he can say some words in all 3 languages as well as in sign language.he picks up the word which is easier for him to pronounce.Here most of  children know 3 to 6 languages.

[rvillane]

thanks kirthika

My question was more oriented to know how to use flash cards with multiple languages simultaneously.

regards

[DannyandAmy]

For some flash cards for my daughter, I put English on the front and Japanese on the back (up-side-down), so that I can show her the English word and flip the card quickly and flash the Japanese, too. I think doing several languages at once is important. At one point in time they need to be shown that one word in one language equals another word in another language... and realize that both words have the SAME meaning.

I also made home-made books (with words on one page and the corresponding pictures on the next page), and just replaced the word pages with the same words but in a different language every now and then. In my case I made English, Japanese, and Spanish word pages.

[howardboys]

Hello, I'm very new to the forums, so I am not sure what LR categories are in Russian.  I could be very interested in it though!

Our household is mainly english, however, our boy has a Russian nanny/day care provider and I am fluent in spoken Russian at an elementary level, and can read children's books very very slowly.  My Russian language comes from my parents who were both born and raised in Odessa when it was part of the USSR, but is now in Ukraine.

My hope is that our boy will pick up some Russian, so these "LR categories" sound intriguing.

What are they?

TIA
mom2ross

[Skylark]

Here is the link for free categories downloads in Russian for Litte Reader educational program. They are great and my daughter loves them, different users contribute with more little by little, but even as is there is a good start for learning, and it comes as translation of many english categories from the curriculum, so it is easy to organise.

http://forum.brillkids.com/downloads/?cat=107
Wish you everything the best with teaching your little one!

[nhockaday]

http://www.brillkids.com/teach-reading/index.php You can read about the Little Reader program there.

[Skylark]

. cat stands for LR extention for the categories. So these files you will be able to use if you have Little Reader. You can read all about it in the reference link Nikki just posted in a reply.

But as you have asked, you can show your lessons on the computer, or it comes with function which allows you to print them out and organise easily in case you prefer to use paper copies ( no need to lay it out yourself, -- saves tons of time, believe me!)

It also has curriculum, which makes it easier for you to have a structured teaching environment, but at the same time you can create your own topics and categiries. And then there are many of the different categoris on the variety of topics and different languages, so you can get advantage of those.

For me it turned out to me one of the most helpful baby teaching products...

Hope this helps

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