I have a 10 month old who I’m teaching to read with Doman and YBCR materials. I’ve been thinking about teaching him to speak and read Dutch as well as English as it’s part of our family heritage. However, I’m not sure if that’s a good idea since some letters in the Dutch alphabet have different phonetic sounds than they do in English (although most sound the same). Does anyone have experience with teaching your baby to read and speak 2 languages? Is it a horrible idea or does it work well? Thanks!!!
Hi Clementine
Great question- I was about to ask others for advice about this same topic.
I am in a similar situation, except that I teach French instead of Dutch. I do Doman only so far and my goal is that soon, my daughter will be able to work out how phonics work. That is why I do not want her to see written English for now, which would in my opinion prevent her from guessing the logic of phonics.
The reason I chose French first:
1-i’m the only one teaching her (her family does not speak the language)
2-she’ll pick up on written english easily (tv etc) as she lives in an english speaking country
3-i have tons of material in french (books)
What is your first language? if it is Dutch and you live in the USA, teaching him to read Dutch first seems the easiest option. in my opinion :happy:
I’m raising my daughter multilingual. I would say that this is one of my priorities. I would suggest both of you take a look at this website http://www.multilingualchildren.org/ They have all kinds of information and explanations about myths, like kids would be confused with all the languages. I have read in a couple places that one of the advantages of exposing them early in life to languages is that they won’t have an accent if they decide to study in depth that language later. At the beggining thet may mix the languages becuase they are trying to figure out which words belong to which language, but it is like with everything else it takes practice.
There are some threads that may interest you both:
