Fabric upcycle: make a chicken door stop
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To make this chicken door stop I used the template kindly offered by Bake and Sew. I adjusted the sizes in mine to make it a little larger by adding 4 cm on each …

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Learning to read in two languages

Submitted by on September 9, 2009 – 6:28 am2 Comments

dr-seuss-activity-book

When our son was born we moved from London to Sardinia for what was supposed to be only a few years, but six years later we are still here and our son is starting school next week. The school system in Italy is slightly different in structure from the UK but the curriculum is similar. In Italy children start primary school at the age of six, but some nursery schools introduce the basics of writing and counting to 5 year olds. However this is done in a playing environment and only some schools adopt the system as it is not required by the national curriculum. We have raised our son speaking two languages and followed the basic rule of speaking English at home and Italian outside the home environment, but we still encountered some difficulties. Initially English was the stronger language of the two and his first words were English words, but as soon as he started socialising with other children and forming actual sentences Italian took over. Although he understands English perfectly he always answers in Italian apart from extreme cases, like with grandparents for example. I have not pushed him too much because I worry it might have the opposite effect so we have been going for a while with this mixed-language conversation system and lately he has started to express himself in English sporadically. Bedtime stories and educational games are always in English and he’s fine with that. The next hurdle will be learning to read and write in two languages. Learning to read and write in Italian is much simpler because there are specific phonetic rules and once you know the combinations of each consonant with the different vowels you are half way there; however this makes learning to read in English much more complicated because it’s impossible to follow the same principle. Initially we started comparing some words but he seemed to get confused so we took a break.  I formulated a game plan, which is based on fun activities focused on learning the primary words. I find Dr Seuss’ books fantastic, not only we enjoy the stories but the repetition of the primary words is cleverly put together to encourage children to remember the rhymes and visualise the words with similar sounds. As well as the story books we use the activity books from the same series such as I am not going to read or write today! and Oh, the things you can say from A-Z.

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2 Comments »

  • Lynette says:

    Wow – Sardinia must be quite a change from London!
    I think it is great that your son is growing up bilingual. There may be some confusion in the early years but down the road I am sure you will all be thankful for the ability to speak (at least) two languages.
    Don’t give up on working on English with him. Reading at bedtime sounds like a great idea, and I bet that once he becomes more secure in reading and writing in Italian, he’ll make similar strides in English, despite the crazy Grammar and spelling rules in our language. No matter what, reading aloud to kids, and later, their reading independently, is a fantastic way to build really important skills: vocabulary, spelling, grammar, critical thinking, and more!

    Lynette
    http://www.picpocketbooks.com

  • wandermom says:

    Hang in there!
    My (Irish) sister-in-law lives in Portugal with her three kids. They switch pretty easily between English and Portugese – although it annoys the heck out of my kids when we visit because their cousins can flip into a language they don’t understand!

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