Hi Mommies and Daddies,
My baby girl now is 9 months and I just started to teach her reading, mathematics and music. However, little reader now is only in English version and I desperately want her to learn Vietnamese as Vietnamese is my mother language. What should I do? Should I translate the word immediately to Vietnamese for her during learning time? Pls advise. Thanks
Do you want to teach to read Vietnamese or Speak Vietnamese?
If you want to teach her Vietnamese as a spoken language, I highly suggest speaking to her in Vietnamese, everyday.
Where do you currently live and where do you anticipate being for the next 4 or 5 years?
If Vietnamese is the minority language, then I would focus my time and attention on getting her fluent in Vietnamese first, so look through the member created files and download anything that helps, stock up on Vietnamese books, videos and buy some simple games for her that she can play as a 1-4 year old. Begin translating a week of curriculum (math and reading) into Vietnamese and teach her to read and speak Vietnamese only for the next 6 months. Then introduce English. (If it is the community language, I wouldn’t worry that she won’t speak English well. She will, so long as she gets out into the community and is exposed to other people.)
I would get a bunch of simple reading books (I know that they are widely available in English) and use sticky notes to translate them into Vietnamese.
We are currently living in Kuala lumpur, Malaysia. My husband is Korean, so my baby is going to expose to 3 languages Korean, Vietnamese and English. I dont know how to start, but currently I have my hubby still have conversation with her by our own language, other people here speak to her in English…
You could translate LR into Vietnamese, yes. That’s what I did to teach my kid to read. After she began to be able to read single words in Vietnamese, I introduced English to her. I must say that the new version of LR is not ideal for teaching Vietnamese, as they tried to put in too many things into one lesson, and a kid might be discouraged at the beginning. I prefer their older version, but it was no longer available. To make up for this, you could use flashcards to teach her single words, using the rules that LR used: Doman methods combined with phonetic rules. For example, I taught my kid words that rhymed with each other in Vietnamese: “chơi”: play, “bơi”: swim, “phơi”: dry. At first, I taught her 3 flashcards a day, as her interest increased, I increased the number of cards to 5, then 7, then 10. My kid is now almost 2 and she can now read sentences of 3 - 4 words. She could also read quite a few words in English.
Anyhow, I suggest you put LR on two computers, one for English and one for Vietnamese. And combine LR with flashcards to help your kid to get used to words. At some point, you could teach her the alphabet also through games. Read a lot to her to get her to be curious about books. I hope you’ll have a great journey with your little one!
Hi Seon Hye! Welcome to the forum!
Here is how we do this with our 10 month old baby when studying Finnish (native), English (LR), Chinese (LR):
We are using LR for daily English lessons (only Session 1) and also for Chinese lessons (Sessions 1 and 2) when ever our LO has enough energy. With English we are doing only Session 1 because our baby got bored with slower pace. I am simultaneously translating the words to our native language as we proceed in LR English. I am only translating multisensory and word split parts because they are slow enough for doing thee translation. I couldn’t do the translation with Chinese LR because I don’t know the words!
I did not translate LR software to Finnish because I thought that he is going to learn it anyway although it might take longer time. We are anyway doing reading, some flashcards and all the everyday communication in his native language.
When we have completed LR Chinese, I am planning to show him some Chinese kids tv series weekly to keep the language in active memory. I am also thinking about buying LR French to start learning yet another language! :yes:
Good luck and please share your progress!
Kristiina