Russian reading skills. teaching children.

Anna A. Eddy aeddy at WAYNE.EDU
Wed May 26 17:24:01 UTC 2010 

Regarding raising bilingual children, it works best when parents/family members_consistently_use a chosen language with the child. That is speaking from research on bilingual children and SLA and personal experience. The important thing is to understand that the child will always have a preferred language for a particular domain of her life and do not fight it, but support it by having a library with books, board games, posters, DVDs, CDs, etc. in both languages. Also, establishing a peer group where the target language is spoken is very effective. There are many mainstream books on raising bilingual children that recommend similar strategies. One of them is by Carey Myles.


Reading in two or more languages and enjoying it comes with time and practice. A 9-year old child who is growing up in the US and speaking Russian with one parent at home most often has the reading ability and vocabulary (in Russian) of a 6-year old. Fairytales are actually difficult to understand since they have some archaic language and unfamiliar cultural connotations. Short stories work well (by N.Nosov, G.Oster) and children can relate to the characters. I sit down to read with my children and we decide who reads what: I read one page and they read one paragraph and so on. By the end of the book we each read a page. It was also fun to watch Russian films on DVD and then reading corresponding books or going to a puppet show about the Firebird and then reading the fairytale.  Consistency is the key. To be able to enjoy reading, the child has to read daily. Children encyclopedias about animals are great for this purpose. There are short paragraphs that are interesting and !
 not intimidating.  

Anna


Anna A. Eddy
Department of Classical and Modern Languages, 
Literatures, and Cultures
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI
USA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nola" <oothappam at EARTHLINK.NET>
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 3:42:29 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Russian reading skills. teaching children.

I read in a parenting book about 20 years ago that if you want a child to be bilingual, the best way is to have the parents or other family members assigned languages and stick to them. Like: mother speaks Russian always with the child, Father speaks English always with the child. It said that if you stay consistent, the child will learn both languages well. But if you slack off..it ends up that the child will not become fluent.I do no t remember which book this was in and so can't give a reference, unfortunately.
Nola
Nola
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Inna Caron 
  To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu 
  Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 9:16 AM
  Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Russian reading skills. teaching children.


  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



  -------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
    options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                      http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
  -------------------------------------------------------------------------

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
    options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                      http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
  -------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

More information about the SEELANG mailing list