Reading in Russian… sort of.

We have some Russian books at home supplied generously by my parents. Apparently, last time they were here they gave my daughter “gentle suggestion” to ask me to read her Russian books. I admit – it was exciting for me to meet again the friends of my childhood. By the way, a lot of them are familiar to the Western children as well – the book featured here is called “Golden Tales of the World” and contains stories of Little Mermaid (real story, not a happy-end Disney version), Jungle Books (again, real story), Little Red Riding Hood, Peter Pan, etc. I decided to start with those and then add true Russian fairy tales, which are usually darker and most of them also come as poems. Now, Anna doesn’t really understand Russian. So I usually read one sentence in Russian then translate it in English and highlight one or two words. That lasts about 5 minutes, then she asks to just keep reading in English. I am afraid that at this point nothing short of immersion program will make her fluent in Russian, but I am glad that she is interested in learning more about my language and culture. I will continue to teach her as long as she is interested, but I am not too interested in “pushing it”. I know fairly well from reading on the subject that minority language cannot be maintained without “critical mass” of listening and reading in it, so I am not kidding myself about my chances of success here.

Raising Bilingual Children

 

Both sets of grandparents have visited us in the space of about 5 weeks. Anna enjoyed all the extra attention, and had a chance to hear a lot of German and Russian. In I have mentioned before that both of us were born outside of US. My parents live in New Jersey now, but Russian is still their predominant language. They are giving me a very hard time for not teaching Anna Russian, and they are right. It was fascinating to hear her using a few Russian words with her babushka and dedushka after just a couple of days together. But I wasn’t prepared to speak Russian to her from birth. For years now I lived in an English-speaking environment, with most of my friends speaking English. I think in English, read English books, watch English movies. I would have never believed it ten years ago, but raising my child in English felt more natural to me than doing so in Russian. It didn’t help that my husband doesn’t speak any Russian. Since he was staying home with Anna, we decided that he will speak German to her while I speak English to her. The results are… interesting. Anna definitely understands German. It was interesting to watch her interact with her German grandma. Oma would ask Anna a question in German, and Anna would reply in a perfect context… but in English. Will her German ever take off? I believe so, but I think she will need more language immersion. Right now all her energies are channelled into mastering and improving her English, and she is significantly above her age in both comprehension and expression. It’s quite a feat for a bilingual child, so I am willing to wait and hope that her passive German will one day become an active language as well.

Fathers and Young Children

Research conducted on fathers’ involvement in their children’ life showed how important it is in children’ development. It affects everything – IQ scores, upward mobility, behavior in adolescence, and, of-course, self-esteem. Anna is extremely lucky in this regard. We both come from strong families, where fathers were involved more than average at that time. Before she was born, her dad has left his software engineering job to become a full time dad. This decision has paid off multiple times in his involvement and the joy we all experience watching our daughter grow and develop. I don’t believe our daughter would have become a person she is in a different setting. My husband manages to walk the thin line between being strict and being loving with grace and confidence that I cannot always master. It also matters a lot that he has different way of teaching her. I am more academic, he is more hands-on. They build things with Legos, play guitar, cook together and speak his native German. I hope that this close father-daughter link will blossom even more over years to come.

Yes, yet another blog.

I have a confession to make. I am an Internet addict. It all started when I was pregnant with my daughter, and it never stopped. At least I manage to keep my addiction to one topic – child development and early learning. I want to have a place where I will keep track of all the things that I have discovered and learned while reading books and articles on the subject. Of course, I also try to use some of the materials while raising my daughter who was born in October 2006, and I will share my successes and failures.

I am not a native English speaker/writer. My native language is Russian, but I’ve been living in the United States for 15 years now. My husband is from Germany. He speaks German with our daughter, and I speak English to her. If someone has any good idea on how to introduce Russian (or any other third language, for that matter), please feel free to comment.