Justine Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 I have scoured and searched what seems like the whole world wide web but can't find a clear answer for our situation. I hope you guys can give me some advice? We are a Germans living in South Africa. Our two oldest (homeschooled) kids are 4 and 6 and speak both English and German, although they are more proficient in German (greater vocab, slightly better grammar). Our community language is English, all our homeschool curriculum is English. My oldest is starting Grade 1 this month but because of her interest she has started to read and write (a bit) in both languages last year already. For German we used Tinto and for English we used Reading Eggs for basic phonics. As we enter Grade 1 I am contemplating what to do. German is clearly easier to de-code and code for her because it's much more phonetical and the Tinto approach is all about writing what you hear (which in German works out really well). So a part of me wants to concentrate on German so she can develop what already seems to make most sense to her. HOWEVER she really only encounters German when we talk at home and read German books or talk to grandparents on skype. English is the medium of instruction during school time (and often beyond), and the language she uses with friends. So I feel we can't just ignore English Language Arts. But doing both together seems really confusing as the rules are so different, plus I don't want to load to much work on her at such an early age. I hear most people introduce a second language at Grade 3. But for us, the "second" language really is as much a first language as our traditional mother tongue. I was thinking to maybe continue with Tinto for German and go more Charlotte Mason with English (narration, copy work, dictation and of course lots of living books that our curriculum provides anyway). Or would it be good to introduce English Language Arts in a more structured manner already (more of a workbook type material) to cover grammar, parts of speech, etc? My head is spinning, I hope this makes sense :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loesje22000 Posted January 10, 2015 Share Posted January 10, 2015 I would 'learn to read' in one language. And when that is covered add reading in the second language. We did the phonics thing twice ( one in Dutch one in English) and it didn't work the second time as she was able to read it, but just not understood the words. I don't think formal grammar is needed at this age. If I read your post I would start with German. But that is just me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4KookieKids Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Agree that I would do German first. It's simpler and she'll get it easier, and then she can apply that understanding to learning English in a year or two once she's reading well in German. We have some German friends living near us in the US, and they did exactly that, but I also have some hispanic friends who just teach reading in both, and figure that kids are resilient enough to figure things out. Both of them have had good results. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsuga Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 German for sure. English is harder having so many different letter combinations for each phoneme and besides, English speakers are more forgiving of non-native speakers than Germans are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twolittleboys Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 As far as reading is concerned, my younger son (bilingual, living in Germany) learned to read at school in first grade. He could read German fairly well after a couple of months of first grade. The funny thing is that he could then read English as well without any specific instruction. Of course he occasionally misreads words because he doesn't know them or they are just spelled really strangely. But for the most part he was just able to read English as well. I was pretty surprised about that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsuga Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Twolittleboys, mine learned English in school after German immersion through kindergarten, and now she reads German aloud fluently, which surprised me as well. They are really little sponges! To think of all the suffering we all went through learning it in high school and college... or at least I did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justine Posted January 14, 2015 Author Share Posted January 14, 2015 Thanks so much for your responses! Your views confirm my gut feeling. I am actually reading up more about Charlotte Mason's approach to LA and I think I will just do that for English - intentionally focus on English whilst we read all our beautiful living books this year but without any of the sit-down, worksheet stuff. And for German we will continue with her Tinto, which she loves. What you guys are sharing makes me more sure of the fact that yes, kids can learn languages intuitively and things will fall into place, step by step, if they have exposure to the language in a rich and engaging way. Sheeeeew. I am breathing a little lighter. Vielen Dank everyone :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desertflower Posted January 15, 2015 Share Posted January 15, 2015 I don't know if this will help, but hopefully will be reassuring. I know someone who learned how to speak both Chinese and English since he was a baby. He was raised in the U.S. he is now a pharmacist. I just like to provide examples or tell people what I would do. I hope this is reassuring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaceeM Posted January 15, 2015 Share Posted January 15, 2015 Quick question do you have a link to the Tinto curriculum? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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