Secondly, how do you teach your baby to read in 2 or more language ?
Its abit harder …especially if they don’t have the same written language … what is that you say??
Well let me explain, chinese language in the written form was standardise some 2000++ yrs ago, but while the written language is the same, the spoken dialects are different. I think about …hmm sorry no idea at least 20 different chinese dialects i know off … but heard its something like 200… anyway … because its written the same way so its easier to express them by guessing …
The malay language is written using the english alphabets …though they are not english actually … so if you know your ABCs … you can guess the word using phonics to read malay … so if you speak and understands malay … you can learn to read and write malay if you know your english … the only problem is the child may have plenty of problems in spelling …
Yes if the written basic are the same, children will use phonics and try to spell, this results in wrong spelling and hence wrong answers and … this is where the gees of the thing comes in … we hope to teach our kids early so that they face less problems in school, but because of the similarities, it delayed and works to their disadvantage instead … instead of going to a good school they may be misunderstood and marginalised.
However, if you are learning say english and chinese or other language like say arabic which is a totally different form of written language … it would be harder to teach … well for a child but maybe not a baby … since the baby thru the right mind is thinking it is looking at a picture … so its good to flash those images into the right brain before 1. But after that the logic of teaching the written word, its pronounciation and its meaning … its where it gets harder … but the idea is to get the child familarize with the written language first, so that the mind when learning it, would easily accept it and not reject it simply because it looks foreign for the mind to decode … it would simply say, hey i saw this somewhere before and i remember my parents doing it with me and it was fun … and that builds their acceptance and willingness to learn it subsequently … and along the way be it 2 or 3 or 4 yrs old, its just a matter of reading and more reading and more familarizing till the school takes over … at least the gifted school takes over that is … the normal school would be abit slow for them …
hope this approach of thinking helps … and this is what i understand from GD and shichida books and what i think all along before i know about their books …
Not saying that she can’t learn, just harder for her…