Russian reading skills. teaching children.

Tue May 25 10:05:55 UTC 2010

Hi,

it's hard to tell whether your son is a heritage speaker or an unbalanced bilingual.  My instinct is that he is a bilingual speaker as the home language is prredominantly Russian.  Don't worry too much about his grammar not being perfect.  There is a natural order of acquisition of morphosyntactic features which all native (and possibly non-native speakers) follow.  The rate of your son's progress from one stage to another is not as quick as children living in a purely Russian environment, so insisting on correct usage of features he hasn't yet acquired may not help, it should come in time.  However, if you want to speed up the rate of acquisition and acquire social aspects of language, the best way to do this is through immersion or submersion.  Studies into second language acquisition have consistently shown that input alone is not enough.  By that we mean that reading and watching/listening alone are not enough to develop acquisition.  Your son needs opportunities for intensive exchanges in Russian and the summer camp that was mentioned before or a month with relatives in Russia would be the best ideas.

I personally wouldn't be in favour of reading Russian translations of English language books as there would be very little motivation for your son.  Why read a translation when you are perfectly capable of reading the original?  Have a look for some modern Russian books for kids.  It's obvious that he doesn't identify culturally with the world of Baba Yaga and forest creatures, but I'm sure many 9 year-olds living in Russia no-longer do either.  You also mentioned that your son has difficulties reading in Russian, so pushing it could make him worse.  Try to find text books for learners of Russian which are age appropriate.  You might find interesting reading material for him there.

Finally, you could take a look at this article by Maria Poplinsky in which she discusses heritage and bilingual speakers, language acquisition and attrition.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/y636566g4065g664/

AM
> Date: Tue, 25 May 2010 02:18:27 -0700
> From: psyling at YMAIL.COM
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Russian reading skills. teaching children.
> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> 
> =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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