Russian reading skills. teaching children.

[Mary Nicholas]

Dear Inna,
I'm certainly not an expert, but may I argue for introducing both 
languages as soon as possible and maintaining them both as long as 
possible, all day every day. The ideal is supposedly to have one 
language, one speaker so, if at all possible, have one parent speak 
Russian exclusively and demand Russian answers and have the other parent 
speak English. If that isn't possible, then I would suggest using all 
Russian, all the time. Once the flood of English hits in day care or 
kindergarten or nursery school, the Russian will have enough difficulty 
competing. We have 3 kids and, predictably, the oldest speaks the best 
Russian and the youngest the worst. If there is no environment in which 
Russian must be spoken to communicate, it's very, very hard to maintain. 
But you can do it if you are really committed. Good luck!
Best, Mary

Inna Caron wrote:
> And on the wings of Katerina's query, does anyone have suggestions for raising a toddler (22-month-old at the moment) bilingual? What would be a good approach - to speak and read exclusively in one language all day long, and alternate between the Russian and the English days? Or do an entire week of one, followed by a week of the other? Or just concentrate on one language until a certain age, then introduce the other?
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Inna Caron
>
> ________________________________________
> From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] on behalf of Katerina Romanenko [kgalrom at YAHOO.COM]
> Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 12:13 PM
> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> Subject: [SEELANGS] Russian reading skills. teaching children.
>
> Hi,
> I suspect that participants of SEELANGs mostly work with adult students, still I thought I'll ask...
> My son (9 y.old)  born in the US,speaks Russian well  yet with huge percentage of Russinglish transformations and direct translations. We speak Russian at home, but not exclusively and fail to really enforce the proper language grammar. (I teach art history and study early Soviet  culture, if anybody wonders what am I doing on SEELANGS) My son likes to listen when I read in Russian, but prefers to read in English on his own... He is a vivid reader in English, loves it, and is able to read for several hours if the story is good.
> This summer he'll be at Grandma's (in Phila, not in Russia), who already taught him basic reading skills in Russian. So he knows the alphabet and is able to read simple words and sentences. But  he does not like reading in Russian because it is hard... The goal for this summer is to improve his reading skills and to practice Russian grammar.
> So I am looking for recommendations of teaching methods, children friendly grammar exercise textbooks (or websites)  and reading-exercise anthologies that are relevant for Americans. (Russian  fairy tails are boring to him as he cannot relate to the characters...). I was even  thinking about good translations of English literature that he may be familiar with in English...
>
>
> Any advise would be appreciated!
>
> By the way, is he a  native or heritage speaker?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Katerina Romanenko
> Doctoral Candidate, Art HIstory
>
>
>
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