Learning to read and write- Bilingual kids

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Forums > Your Questions — General > Learning to read and write- Bilingual kids

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Karina

Posted 11/22/13	Reply with quote #1

Hello everyone, I am a proud mother of a 4 year old boy who speaks Spanish and English fluent. I am from Chile and I stay home with him and talk to him in only in Spanish. My husband is from Nepal, but he chose to speak only English to our son. However my son is around many Nepali speakers and he knows several works in Nepali, but he can’t carry a conversation in Nepali yet. We leave in the U.S and now my son is attending pre- school and soon it will time for him to learn to read and write in English. I am also teaching him at home the letters and words’ sounds in Spanish. He is really good in both languages and the best thing is that he likes to learn a lot. My goal is that he can read and write in both languages. But now am not sure if he should learn to read and write in one language first, or I should let him learn both languages at the same time. I hope someone had a similar situation and can give me advice about this topic. Thanks Karina

Alisa

Posted 12/19/13	Reply with quote #2

Hi Karina, I see your question is from a while ago so I don’t know if you’ll check back, but here’s my experience: I have an 8 year old and a 5 1/2 year old. We live in France, I speak mostly English with them and my husband mostly French, they go to French schools. We have done reading & writing in both languages at once (French at school, English at home), and they have done just fine. Many sounds are the same in both languages, but even those that are different, they have had no trouble separating that it makes this sound in French but that sound in English. Both of mine started reading around 5 1/2 and in English at French at once. Best of luck to you.

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