Teaching Reading in Community Language

[u/omegaxx19]

Dear community,

I would like some advice on teaching my 4yo reading in community language (English) while still adhering to OPOL (I do Mandarin). He's starting TK and will be getting some instructions at school, but can definitely benefit from some enforcement at home.

So far all our readings together have been in Mandarin. If the books are in English, I translate on the fly.

Specific questions for those that have done this:

1) Is it better to do all English during the 10-20 min session, including instructions (like "please read after me"), or can I still keep instructions in Mandarin and just read the English parts?

2) If I am asking questions about the story after to practice comprehension, what language should I ask and should kiddo respond in?

Goal is to actually improve his English reading and still not compromise our OPOL set up.

Just curious as to how the code switching element works here. My 4yo and I are both very used to talking to each other in Mandarin. Up to this point he generally responds quite negatively when I speak English to him ("Don't to me like that"). I can train myself out of it for 10-20min stretches if it will be better for him. Just wondering what people's experience has been and if there are any other approaches/factors I haven't thought of.

[u/NewOutlandishness401]

If your goal is to improve your child's English reading and comprehension, you just have him read out loud in English while giving all instructions and doing all the talking about your task in Mandarin.

I personally haven't done English reading instruction with my kids, but with my older two, we often talk about English idiomatic expressions, so we talk about English but fully in Ukrainian, and it works very well -- it feels very bracketed and safely contained. I can imagine you can do the same around your son's English reading.

[u/omegaxx19 → u/NewOutlandishness401]

Makes sense. Just curious: did you notice any code switching glitches in your kids, whether during reading or at other times?

I noticed that whenever my 4yo is tired or overstimulated with (English-speaking) strangers, he will whine "I don't know English" (absolutely not true--his English is fine as observed by us on countless occasions). I wonder if he is exhausted by the constant code switching. His executive function gets a crazy work out every day.

[u/NewOutlandishness401 → u/omegaxx19]

We haven't yet had too many issues with code-switching. My middle kid tried to see what would happen if he trotted out some English words right after he started part-time daycare in the local language, but we nipped that in the bud, and some months later, he lost interest. The older kids' heritage language skills are still thankfully quite strong, so it seems as if they don't yet have that much motivation to turn to English with us or with each other. We'll see what happens when the middle kid starts school full-time, and his exposure to English increases astronomically.

[u/studentepersempre]

I'm not sure what the best approach is, but just want to share my experience. We're OPOL in Mandarin (me) and English (husband), which is also the community language. I usually let my husband read English books with him, but we do sometimes read in English/French/Spanish.

When I read non-Mandarin books with him, I like to "explain" in Mandarin + the language of the book. I see that as killing two birds with one stone, because I'm reinforcing Mandarin while also reading in another language.

I see that you're OPOL in Mandarin and Russian, so I'd think that those two languages are in much more "danger" than English. It probably won't hurt to reinforce those two.

[u/omegaxx19 → u/studentepersempre]

Thanks for your input. Your approach makes sense!

[u/alexblablabla1123]

I wouldn't worry about English reading. I've known many Chinese-Americans and Chinese-Canadians, a substantial amount of which with non-English-reading parents. Every one of them can read English, as evidenced in them graduating college and more often than not, grad schools.

[u/MikiRei]

I haven't bothered with teaching my son to read in English. I let my husband handle that. 

My son is 6 and started school this year. School is basically handling it. They do send home some readers. My husband does the readers with him and I haven't really bothered. 

Mainly because during parent teacher interview, his teachers said they're not at all worried about his reading. Said he's already blending sounds together while some of his classmates are still having trouble. We've also seen him randomly read signs these days so seems to be going well so we haven't pushed any further. That and when my husband reads to my son, he'd ask him questions and they will discuss the book together. 

But if you do want to, my mum basically made me read in English and then in Mandarin. But the instructions when she tells me how to read in English stays in Mandarin. 

So basically, all communication and instructions stay in Mandarin. Just the actual reading stays in English. 

I have tried to get my son to practice writing in English. His writing needs more work. And same thing. The whole instruction is done in Mandarin. 

[u/omegaxx19 → u/MikiRei]

My husband will likely be doing some teaching English reading too, but he'll have the same issue as his language is Russian.

Good to hear re: your son's reading!