Hi,
nickatbasel Jnr (turns 4 on May 3rd) misses out on the Kindergarten "Stichdatum" (cut off date) by a few days - so he will start next year instead - which is probably no bad thing as maturity wise, we felt he would benefit from waiting the extra year.
He was born in Basel and has attended German-Swiss Kinderkrippe since 6 months old and his Swiss German (now Züri) is definitely up to scratch. We speak our respective languages at home (English and Dutch) and he is fluent in those too.
So..we decided to make use of this year by making sure he is strong in our own languages by putting him in to playgroups and other situations where he will use English and Dutch as experience from other expat friends is once Kindergarten and formal school starts, the German will become the dominant language.
Anyway...coming to the point...I mentioned to my mum (a retired literacy teacher) about getting him reading as he loves being read to, and is constantly pointing out letters and numbers on signs and in books etc. So my parents arrived from England this weekend with a copy of Doctor Suess' "I Am Not Going To Read Any Words Today" - and after two or three days he is slowly starting to read words by himself. It is a really great book that uses games, rhyming and reward stickers to get kids to read.
He really loves the book and he's keen to do the next part each time.
My recommendation of the day - I'm sure it won't suit every child of course.
Cheers,
Nick
I believe Swiss teachers insist on first teaching them to read after they have finished Kindergarten.
So to avoid treading on their toes, maybe you should only teach him to read English.
If you decide that you would really like him to learn to read 'properly' then I can recommend the 'Jolly Phonics' scheme. I've had three children learn to read using it (my third child is currently in Grand section (K2) and will start primary in August).
The scheme is clear, teaches the most common letters first so the child can very rapidly start to spell out simple words and associates action with letter sounds, something which really helps.
There's a load of work books/ dvds/ resources etc available to buy online. We've found it very painless with our daughter (although she was 5 when we started).
My kids love Dr Suess book too -trouble is, I loathe them!
Having come from the UK at age 6, my daughter could read, write and do basic arithmetic on entering kindergarten - it wasn't a problem.
Reading to your kid every night is excellent for them and you. Dr Seuss is totally brilliant. The Gruffalo, the Very Hungry Caterpillar, Spot the Dog. And of course - Where's my Cow? (Pratchett) The key to a good book is one that parents and child enjoy.
Have fun.
Didn't realise Dr. Seuss books were still around and in vogue. I remember going to the town library every Saturday to get a "Cat-in-the-Hat" book, 40 odd years ago to aid my reading.
Ittigen has a point - as illogical and frustrating as it seems, you can't push them too much, so they end up in advance of those in their class, as this can cause boredom and frustration waiting for the others around to catch up.
It's good to concentrate on the other languages, if it doesn't complicate the learning process.
Although, I did it in reverse with my eldest - I believed it right to concentrate on German initially, and only when this had been mastered, then move on to reading English.
Obviously there is no right or wrong way as each child and situation is different.
A interesting debate I think - to teach mother tongue reading and writing pre school or not.
I went with teaching it and all the professionals, I have spoken to, who are in contact with my children in the swiss schooling system, are very in favour of this continuing. We are a monolingual household - only English at home and all the teachers have expressed the view that the more proficient you are in your mother tongue, the easier second and third languages are to acquire.
Equally the wider the vocab a child has in their mother tongue, the wider they will acquire in the subsequent languages.
Caz
Hi Ittigen,
Dr Seuss is English (well American but it will do).
I think you have to start somewhere - and not being a native German speaker I am not going to try and give him bad habits in German. I prefer he gets a solid grounding in English from me. We'll also have to figure out how and what with Dutch - just to make sure he has a good grounding in grammar in both our respective tongues.
He will have plenty of opportunity at the local school to get into reading German - and I think he is smart enough to figure things out. He corrects my German pronunciation when I get it wrong so he can't be that much behind and he isn't 4 yet.
Cheers,
Nick
Have a look on this (free) website about reading in English:
www.oxfordowl.co.uk You have a lot of free e-books (with audio! ). High quality. The Oxford Reading Tree is perfect and follows the UK curriculum. Adapted for very beginners.
A lot of books' recommandations as well.
I know the above was banned for spamming, but just to avoid confusion for anyone seeking tips for their pre-schoolers: Oxford Reading Tree in no way whatsoever follows the UK curriculum.
The UK primary schools teach reading following the extremely rigorous step-by-step techniques outlined in this 'Letters and Sounds' document, which covers the first 3 years of primary schooling (ages 4-7 in the UK). It's very like the Jolly Phonics scheme mentioned above and other synthetic phonics programs.
http://www.education.gov.uk/publicat...FES-00281-2007
Oxford Reading Tree books are not phonics-based, are not decodable and are based on the 'whole word' system of learning to read which has not been in common use for at least a decade. The only reason many primary schools still use them is simply cost - they have a LOT of the ORT titles, often in multiple sets for class reading, and just can't afford to skip them all and rebuild their early reader libraries from scratch.
If you want a free, phonic-based reading program, try this one: http://www.progressivephonics.com/
It's rather nice, as it encourages reading together with the learning child; you read most of the story and they fill in with their words in a different colour, based on the sounds learnt so far. There's lots of rhyming and the stories are quite amusing. This makes a change from the usual rather dull beginner readers, which tend towards the 'The cat. The mat. The cat is on the mat' level of plot and interest.
For the more traditional workbook approach, try Schofield and Sims: http://www.schofieldandsims.co.uk/se...enre=Workbooks . Their 'Sound Phonics' workbooks align with the Letters and Sounds document above and work through all the letter sound combinations necessary to read and spell, include high frequency word recognition and practice, and you can get the entire set with delivery to Switzerland for under £30.
I've ... sorry, my kids have also enjoyed the Dr Seuss computer games. Green Eggs and Ham, Cat in the Hat, Dr Seuss's ABC... ( The audio book of that, read by Rick Mayall, ends with Big Zee, Little Zee... or as we English say, Zed, ... ).
It's great that your son wants to learn and you've found a fun way to teach him! If he likes computer stuff you might like to look at starfall.com as well, it's (mostly) free and there are various different levels for different abilites. I started using that at age 3 with my son and he loves it, and my 2 year old can now identify about 2/3 of the alphabet from playing it - which she does because she sees him doing it.
We have some of the ORT books and although it isn't synthetic phonics, they do also publish a synthetic phonics series using the same characters (Biff, Chip and Kipper...!) which we use and like very much. They're expensive though. And of course there are loads of other synthetic phonics things out there. But I learnt to read with the whole-word system myself and that was fine too - presumably it depends on the child.
Also wanted to say my lad started kindergarten in September and his teacher wasn't at all concerned about him already being able to read a bit. In fact quite a few of his classmates can read and write a little, as many of them have older siblings who they've picked it up from. So no need to worry on that score, I think.
You can't really separate, though. It's not like there are three separate little drawers in that little head of a trilingual child. The fantastic thing is, they are learning simultaneously, that's the huge advantage they have which forms their little brains in a completely different way than when we learn languages. The minute they learn in one language, their little fast processors will apply it to the rest.
For kids with sensory overload, or languages that are not in the same family (we have Slavic, Anglosaxon and Latin languages to deal with), I focused on hearing things well, first. Going through writing 1st, while supporting hearing all the forms correctly, to make the connection later when reading. I do fine motorics with our 4 yr old, she can slowly write a few things, while she is learning how to read as a byproduct (the declensions and conjugations are really too difficult if one does not live in that environment). I got books on prewriting motoric skills first, visual aid exercises, math and logic, more pictures and wider context, then narrow it down on actual alphabets in a few months (phonetics between CZ-EN-FR is a major mess). I also have to deal with some logopedy, not in Fr (somehow easiest, since we live in that context and creche is a major aid), but in CZ and EN.
I discussed this with our future teachers for enfantine, and the schools in our mingling area seems to be aware of the linguistic development, ie learning one language automatically enhances all the other languages of a multilingual child (reading, too).
Just to share another technique is to show alphabet flashcards as often as possible. "A is for apple...the sound is..." and then with some actions involved for some letters. I did this when my daughter was 4, we made the cards ourselves so its special and at 5 she can read on her own and choose from several kiddie books. We have special reading books from the philippines with 5 levels (i learned from it as well as my other 4 siblings). She then can color it as a reward. She just turned 6 and soon she would be advanced enough to read books the same level as the Bible. She is now obsessed with movies and before i let her watch its mandatory that she reads me a story first, out loud with feelings (hehe). Still no german in the house as recommended by her kindergardener.