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.