Books, books, books...

I haven't written anything in a while, and I would like to blame it on Thanksgiving weekend. As everybody else, we had four days filled with turkey feasts, visits with friends and car trips. Car trips is something that we don't do often, because we don't own a car. And I noticed that car trips resulted in not just less movement, but, with mommy and daddy sitting in the front, also in less direct communication with Sasha. It was mostly him listening to mommy and daddy speaking English. So, I guess, long weekends and vacations will always mean more English, and I would just have to make up for Russian afterwards.

During the dinner at a friend's house, Greg was telling everybody how he reads "Great Day For Up!" by Dr. Seuss to Sasha every morning. As Greg was reciting two or three lines from the book, Sasha all of a sudden said very loud and clearly: "Up! Up!". I am not sure if he understands that he could use this word to tell us that he wants to be picked up, but he definitely remembers the book.

And as I previously wrote, he is becoming quite a book lover, spreading the night time books on our bed, when it's time for bed time stories.

His favorite Russian book is "Where did the sparrow eat his lunch?" by S.Marshak. It's about the sparrow eating lunch at the zoo with all these different animals. He ate carrots with the elephant, and grains with the rhino... And the crocodile almost ate him. Sasha really loves that book, anticipating every line. He also pulls it out from the shelve, when he is in that play area.

In the meantime, the holidays are rapidly approaching. So, I tried to find some nice winter time books at the library. Now, the problem will be that Sasha does not really want to read any new books. Instead, he prefers to read his favorite ones over and over again. So, I tried the counting book "One Snowy Day" with no success.

Any other suggestions for good winter time books?

Bilingual schools

You might think that it is too early to be thinking about Sasha's education when he is just a year old. In case of our family, just choosing a good school is not enough. It is critical that the school that we choose does not discourage bilingualism.

Why would I say "discourage bilingualism"? Well, the widespread ELA programs (English Language Acquisition) discourage the use of any language other than English in a school setting. Kids who speak some other language more fluently than English are called English Language Learners and are told to take ELA classes, as well as some of them are paired up with English native speakers for improving their English communication skills. Apparently, legally, public schools are supposed to provide everyone with equal access to education, and that is why those ELA programs started appearing everywhere. It may be a great program for newcomers to America, but at the same time it sends a message that kids should deny their identity and that all other languages are not acceptable.

Fortunately, there is also a movement for dual language immersion education. Dual language immersion schooling starts out at Kindergarten or 1st grade level with kids spending 50% of every school day in a language other than English. That means that half of their classes (including math, history, etc) are taught in a language other than English. And in many cases you need to have special educational materials, because you cannot just use English language math books when you are using Spanish as a medium. These programs slowly introduce more and more English, and generally immersion programs end in the 8th grade. The logic behind K-8 immersion programs is that there is a critical period for language learning which closes at approximately 14 years of age. After that, it takes more effort to learn new languages. (Which is true, if you think about all those youngsters that take in languages like a sponge, while their parents struggle to learn a few hundred words for years).

While there are many immersion school, public, charter and private ones, around the US, it is actually very difficult to find a Russian immersion program. There is not enough community need and not enough general interest in Russian. The most wide spread immersion programs are the ones in Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and French. There is also a new interest in Arabic. And there are some regional specifics, for example, Hawaii has several immersion programs for Hawaiian language.

In Denver, there is no Russian immersion program currently. However, Global Village Academy - a charter school in Aurora, CO - has applied for a new school in a suburb north of Denver. Their new school, if approved, will offer the Dual Russian-English Immersion program. We live quite far from that suburb, but we have already put Sasha on a waiting list with this new, not-yet-existent school. If it does not open, we will have no options for immersion education in Denver for him. So let's hope it will.

Language delay in bilinguals

So far, I have met two children who are being raised with multiple languages and have been diagnosed with a slight language delay at 18 months.

In Denver, there is a special free service from Denver Options, where a development specialist can come to your home for free, observe the child and diagnose any delay in speech or motor skills.

In two cases that I have heard of, children were diagnosed with a speech delay, and now their parents are being discouraged from using other language with their child. By other language I mean other than English. So, now these parents are confused: "Did my bilingual efforts cause this delay?".

This has been blogged about, and talked about: "Well, don't you think that your child will be confused about what language he should speak? Well, aren't you concerned how he will do in school?"

In my opinion, this is just how people discomfort with foreign culture and language manifests itself. "I am confused about this bilingual code switch, and so this child should be, too". In the reality, there are many places around the world where people live in a multilingual society - Switzerland, Ethiopia, India, and many more. And nobody in those societies questions whether their child should speak more than one language. In those societies, this is the only way to success in school, social life and business.

Coming back to those kids that I know. One is 3 years old, and another one is 19 months. They do seem to be more quiet in comparison to other kids. The 3 year old uses only English. She has been in English speech therapy, and her mom felt that using English with her would help. By now, she can still address her in her native language (I am omitting the information about what languages are being used with those kids, because I do not want those families to be identified), but the child only responds in English.

The second child has been diagnosed with a slight speech delay just a month or so ago. Originally, the father raised the concern about the child not saying any words. Denver Options diagnosed the child and offered speech therapy. Now, therapist comes about once per week and plays different games with the girl, games that would encourage communication. The therapy is in English. Sign language is also being introduced. The mom tries to copy the speech therapy techniques, and also switches more and more to English.

I have just seen the second girl again today on the playground. And at some point during play, she raised her hands to the sky and said something. We didn't really understand what she said and what language was used, but she does say stuff. I wonder if the therapy is working or if there was no delay. According to this article on Mommy Maestra, which is written by linguists who are working on a study of language delays in bilinguals, testing a bilingual child in one language guarantees lower scores than testing a monolingual child of the same age group. But if you combine vocabulary from both languages, you may get even a higher score. So, the question is if those programs available in our communities can properly diagnose language problems in bilinguals.

At the same time, I would like to say that Denver Options is probably a great service, because it is free, and they come to your house. I am just seeing two families that are convinced that their bilingualism caused speech delay in their child.

Sasha, Books & Kiki

I am a strong believer that you cannot just drill a vocabulary into a small child and expect him to know and use those words. Our environment sets up the stage for learning, and the first words that a child learns reflect his day-to-day living, his routines, his likes & dislikes.

And so, it is easily explainable why the new addition in Sasha's vocabulary is книжки / books. And I have to say that I have heard him saying book in English, and also trying to pronounce книжки in Russian. The Russian word for books is very difficult to pronounce, because it has the sound zh (there is no way to really spell it in English), but he just says kiki instead of knizhki.

Sasha is being read to by Greg in English every morning and every night. The repertoire includes Dr. Seuss and Sandra Boynton, as well as others. I read to Sasha in Russian, but I do it during the day when the mood strikes, and there is no routine around it. We keep cardboard books on the lowest shelve in the living room, and Sasha can pull them out if he wants to. That's usually when I read to him. I just read the books that he pulls from the shelve, and with advice from a friend, I am just translating the English ones as I go.

So, lately, when Sasha sees books and wants us to read to him, he says kiki a lot. Also, there were nursing sessions, from which Sasha just crawled away towards kiki. The episode when Sasha used the English word was also a nursing routine right before bed. Usually, I nurse him, and then Greg comes in and reads him some bedtime stories. So, on that particular occasion, Sasha was overly excited and did not nurse too well. He kept stopping looking at me and saying stuff that I don't understand yet. So, he looked up and said: "Papa?" And I responded in Russian: "Yes, Daddy is coming soon, let's eat some more". So, he nursed another second or two, looked up and said: "Book?" So, obviously, the English word is strongly associated with Dad, who reads to him in English.

Language & TV

I think we all are aware of the "evil" side of television entertainment. American studies linking childhood obesity to TV date back to the early 80s.  And before that, in the 1970s, psychologists used to show kids violent movies to see how they react, and the results were astonishing: kids with less TV per day were more sensitive to violence with their pulse fluctuating more than those kids who watched a lot of TV on a regular basis. (A side thought: Isn't it kind of wrong to place a child in front of a violent movie just to see how he reacts?)

Nowadays, there is plenty of research on language development and screen media (the term screen media encompasses television, recorded video, computer games and entertainment), and the results are not in favor of the latter: When young children watch TV, they tend to babble less, they tend to have less interactions with adults, and, as a result, they tend to acquire vocabulary slower than those kids with little or no TV exposure.

Truthfully, I have a TV on in the background, as I am typing this, but Sasha is asleep at this point. When he was a newborn, we used to watch TV a lot, having it on most of the day. That practice had changed with different family members who were helping us to babysit when Sasha was 3 - 7 months old. Nowadays, TV is on only when he is asleep, and some days we don't turn it on, at all. It's probably healthier for us, too. At the same time, we don't want to miss our favorite sitcoms that are on on Mondays. So, on Mondays we turn the TV on for an hour or so, and one of us occupies Sasha, while the other watches TV.

I wholeheartedly agree that television presents a distraction for a young child, not a learning tool. Of course, Sasha is distracted by TV when it is on, but 1 hour per week accounts to only 1 percent of his awake time, and 99% of his awake time he has opportunities for both independent play and adult-child interaction.

I think no TV rule, which many households adopt when their children are young, is a good one. But this can be modified for other families: no TV when your child is awake, and when he is asleep, the sound should be kept to the minimum. A tiny TV indulgence for parents is not a big deal, as long as the rest of the time parents are not just physically present, but are also available for two-way interaction with their child. Let's face it: your TV might be off, but you may be texting, talking on the phone or reading the newspaper for hours, which means no interaction opportunity for your child.

Blogging about blogging

I have been recently thinking about how many parents out there are blogging about raising their children being able to speak English and Russian languages. And it turns out there are not that many of us. So, I decided to share with you what I have found out.

The author of Learning with Mouse is a Russian speaking mom of a girl who is growing up in a trilingual environment - with dominant English and a pinch of German and Russian. It sounds like their multilingual story is not very successful, as the mom has been in the United States for a while now and says that raising her daughter in English feels more natural. English is also the medium for the media - books, movies, etc. If a book is in Russian, the child wants it to be read and translated. Both parents still try to expose the child to Russian and German,  but with monolingual English preschool it appears to be difficult.

On Bilingual Monkey, a Russian native mom encounters new sides of her own culture and laughs with her husband as they see their son trying to juggle Russian and English. It's too bad that she stopped contributing to it.

A 6 year old on http://spasfam.blogspot.com/ has recently decided that he loves Russia and all things Russian. The family has no native Russian speakers, but is willing to support their son's interest. So far, it seems like his motivation might be able to get him at least some knowledge of culture and basic words.

Irina McGuire seems to use the same method like myself - One Parent One Language. At this point, her son is about two years old and can differentiate between Russian and English, name parts of the face in both languages, and even mixes both languages together when building sentences (which is not a bad thing; the child is just experimenting to see what is proper in which interaction). That gives me hope that some day Sasha will reach this level, as well.

***

There is an update on Sasha's vocabulary. I have also added the English vocabulary page that proudly contains one word.

Searching for foreign language books

This proves to be quite a task, as there are many websites that cater to bilingual education by offering bilingual books. Personally, I think that purchasing bilingual books is not necessary. There is more sense in finding books in one language, in other words, purchasing monolingual books in two different languages. First, if the book can be read in two languages, which language will be preferred by a child? If a child is very interested in characters, but cannot pick in what language this book will be read to him, the monolingual book benefits to acquiring more vocabulary.

Second, I feel that offering bilingual books means raising your child on generic culture: no culturally authentic characters, no authentic interactions, etc.

Worldlanguage.com, as well as Amazon offer foreign language editions (I searched Russian edition) for books that were originally published in English. They are beautifully made, but I see the same problem arising - generic characters and utterances. If you are looking for foreign language books for your child, here are the methods I suggest:

• Stop by a branch of your public library that is located in a neighborhood with high percentage of people who speak the language you are trying to teach your child. Most likely, there will be books donated by someone in the community and, even if you decide not to check them out, you can at least get a list of children authors.
• Search authors.
• Search "Russian children books" (or whatever language you need) instead of "bilingual children books".
• Team up with other parents to start book exchange to keep your selection fresh.