Russian reading skills. teaching children.

[Psy Ling]

=Russian satellite TV is good too.=
I do not think "Russia Today" will be a good choice though. Sometimes they have very angry "crosstalks".
PL/VB




________________________________
From: Romy Taylor <romy at PETUHOV.COM>
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Sent: Mon, May 24, 2010 11:20:55 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Russian reading skills. teaching children.

Hi Katerina, Nola, all,

The translations of Harry Potter, etc., are not great.  I would suggest that the introduction of new characters in Russian is an analogous process to the introduction of new characters in English; he didn't know Harry Potter before the first book came out, right?  Better to go with great Russian children's literature.  To make everything more appealing, perhaps a community center, church, synagogue etc. can link you up with other Russian-speaking families so he has a peer group, and then organize small-group lessons.  You should have no problem finding this in the Philadelphia immigrant community, including plenty of retired schoolteachers, or perhaps your mother would be good at this.  Russian satellite TV is good too.

Romy Taylor

Quoting Nola <oothappam at EARTHLINK.NET>:

> I have seen Harry Potter in Russian. Perhaps some Russian  translations of novels that are popular with American kids, like  Harry Potter, would be fun for him? I think I saw "A series of  Unfortunate Events"-the Lemony Snicket books, also in Russian. There  are booksellers on ebay who sell a lot of these type books in Russian.
> Nola
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Katerina Romanenko
>   To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
>   Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 9:13 AM
>   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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