We’re raising a trilingual baby and I’m still kind of in the dark how to go about teaching him read. I decided to start with reading in his ‘native’ language using LR/flashcards and for now we’re using YBCR for English. The third language will have to wait a bit, I think it would be too much, if not for the baby, than for sure for me. I have no problem with the flashcard/sight reading method, I believe he just takes it in, the question I have is regarding phonics, as they are different in each of our languages. I don’t know how to teach for example sound of the letter ‘A’ if in one language it sounds like ‘aah’ and the other ‘uh’ (or something like that).
Any thoughts on the subject anybody? Anybody facing the same question? Tips, experience? Looking forward to hear from you!
helloo… I had the same question in mind today except the languages that I am trying to teach don’t use the same alphabets…makes it much easier. Sounds are the same. I searched and found this helpful:
http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-signing-speaking-foreign-languages/does-anyone-know-what-flash-card-method-to-use-when-teaching-two-languages/msg23717/#msg23717
I hope you find it helpful.
I’m looking forward to hearing answers on this. I am actually dealing with an older child (four) and phonics, and not Doman flashcards… but we are doing phonics in English (readingeggs.com) and I was wondering about starting in French as he will be starting preschool in French in the fall… perhaps I’ll just wait. And also pinyin, which again has similar letters as English but different pronunciations…
I am reading “Growing Up in Three Languages: Birth to Eleven” and she didn’t start her sons in pinyin until they already could read in English (ie they were 7 or so) and she says that worked so well… they could just apply what they had learned in English to the Chinese (they spoke Chinese and French fluently at home, OPOL) so maybe I’ll hold off.
I am using flash cards, books, games etc to teach him chinese characters, as that doesn’t give him competing sounds for the same symbols.
I hope you get lots of responses!