About a month ago we gave up reading bedtime stories to the boys and just let them hop into bed with their own books; the end of an era. I am torn between sorrow and joy.
To get three children on their reading journey is quite an achievement. My youngest recently started going to bed with his book and I am joyous.
Laurensays
My parents put an enormous effort into making me a reader, despite not reading much themselves, and I rewarded them by learning so well I couldn’t stand being read to after the age of six, because I could do it faster! I’ve always felt rather guilty about that, but I home my parents understood.
It is great that they are all readers, Charlotte – I think it’s a great hobby. Glad that your guys are readers too.
You know, Lauren, if they’re anything like me, they were sad but also glad because the kind of material you have to read to your 6 year old can be tough going for a grown up…
Laurensays
True, that. Particularly because my parents (particularly my father’s side of the family, but also my mother to some extent) don’t come from English speaking backgrounds, or families with people who had degrees and or had even finished school (none of my grandparents did that) and I know they had to research the sort of things six-year-olds were supposed to be reading. Research was highly successful – I ended reading every classic work of children’s literature available during the course of my childhood, even if I had to explain what Narnia, Wind in the Willows etc actually were about. (Mum researched – Dad went off to the library or bookshop with a list – daughter read books and then reported back!)
It sounds like you certainly were Lauren. Just curious, did your parents ever read to you in their mother tongues or was it always just English?
Laurensays
No, always in English, because they came from families which firmly believed that the only way to success was to basically forget what had come before, and there was a lot of social pressure to be monolingual with their children. My maternal grandfather’s native languages were Russian and Yiddish, but my mother only acquired a smidge of Yiddish – not enough to read to anyone. My paternal grandmother spoke Polish as her native language, my paternal grandfather German – my father has only ever spoken English, although it’s a little eccentric at times, particularly when he writes, given the quality of the English he heard at home!
My maternal grandmother did in fact have English as her native language, but she left school at 14 when her own mother died, and bedtime stories weren’t something she did, I understand.
Ironically, as a result of my academic interests, I now speak German (and live there), can read Yiddish, and can produce some very bad Polish when necessary! I do hope there is less pressure today on the children of immigrants to blend in to the extent that they lose their own culture.
This is so interesting Lauren. When we were growing up (though you may have been growing up a bit after me…) all the evidence seemed to indicate that learning multiple languages confused children and that they wouldn’t learn anything properly. Now the evidence seems to point in exactly the opposite direction indicating that learning additional languages from an early age but particularly supporting mother tongue leads to additional cognitive flexibility in addition to all the benefits of speaking two or more languages fluently.
Despite the evidence, the notion that you can’t learn the host language unless you rigourously suppress mother tongue is still being peddled to migrant children and their parents by people with the best intentions. This isn’t to say that migrant children don’t need support at home in the host language of course they do but this shouldn’t be at the expense of fluency in their mother tongue.
I think I should probably stop now before I get too carried away but I just think it’s so sad that people are shielding their children from their mother tongue to help them integrate when the evidence is that supporting mother tongue actually helps to build literacy in the host language and there are all the attendant cultural benefits also.
OK, I can stop anytime. I’m suitably impressed that you’ve picked up some Polish!
Laurensays
Feel free to drop me a line on this topic – I think the reply formula gives you my address. I actually work in an English department, and while language acquisition and bilingualism aren’t my precise research interests, it’s also a topic on which I can chat for ages!
(As my case proves, major unintended consequence by enforcing the local language on migrants is that you end up with people who can speak it, but can’t offer their children really basic things like reading to them, because they have no idea what children in that culture actually read. You can’t expect everyone to be as dedicated as my parents – and of course, in that generation, the consequence was not being read to at all, and always communicating with at least one parent through a weird second language filter.)
To get three children on their reading journey is quite an achievement. My youngest recently started going to bed with his book and I am joyous.
My parents put an enormous effort into making me a reader, despite not reading much themselves, and I rewarded them by learning so well I couldn’t stand being read to after the age of six, because I could do it faster! I’ve always felt rather guilty about that, but I home my parents understood.
It is great that they are all readers, Charlotte – I think it’s a great hobby. Glad that your guys are readers too.
You know, Lauren, if they’re anything like me, they were sad but also glad because the kind of material you have to read to your 6 year old can be tough going for a grown up…
True, that. Particularly because my parents (particularly my father’s side of the family, but also my mother to some extent) don’t come from English speaking backgrounds, or families with people who had degrees and or had even finished school (none of my grandparents did that) and I know they had to research the sort of things six-year-olds were supposed to be reading. Research was highly successful – I ended reading every classic work of children’s literature available during the course of my childhood, even if I had to explain what Narnia, Wind in the Willows etc actually were about. (Mum researched – Dad went off to the library or bookshop with a list – daughter read books and then reported back!)
I was very lucky, really.
It sounds like you certainly were Lauren. Just curious, did your parents ever read to you in their mother tongues or was it always just English?
No, always in English, because they came from families which firmly believed that the only way to success was to basically forget what had come before, and there was a lot of social pressure to be monolingual with their children. My maternal grandfather’s native languages were Russian and Yiddish, but my mother only acquired a smidge of Yiddish – not enough to read to anyone. My paternal grandmother spoke Polish as her native language, my paternal grandfather German – my father has only ever spoken English, although it’s a little eccentric at times, particularly when he writes, given the quality of the English he heard at home!
My maternal grandmother did in fact have English as her native language, but she left school at 14 when her own mother died, and bedtime stories weren’t something she did, I understand.
Ironically, as a result of my academic interests, I now speak German (and live there), can read Yiddish, and can produce some very bad Polish when necessary! I do hope there is less pressure today on the children of immigrants to blend in to the extent that they lose their own culture.
This is so interesting Lauren. When we were growing up (though you may have been growing up a bit after me…) all the evidence seemed to indicate that learning multiple languages confused children and that they wouldn’t learn anything properly. Now the evidence seems to point in exactly the opposite direction indicating that learning additional languages from an early age but particularly supporting mother tongue leads to additional cognitive flexibility in addition to all the benefits of speaking two or more languages fluently.
Despite the evidence, the notion that you can’t learn the host language unless you rigourously suppress mother tongue is still being peddled to migrant children and their parents by people with the best intentions. This isn’t to say that migrant children don’t need support at home in the host language of course they do but this shouldn’t be at the expense of fluency in their mother tongue.
I think I should probably stop now before I get too carried away but I just think it’s so sad that people are shielding their children from their mother tongue to help them integrate when the evidence is that supporting mother tongue actually helps to build literacy in the host language and there are all the attendant cultural benefits also.
OK, I can stop anytime. I’m suitably impressed that you’ve picked up some Polish!
Feel free to drop me a line on this topic – I think the reply formula gives you my address. I actually work in an English department, and while language acquisition and bilingualism aren’t my precise research interests, it’s also a topic on which I can chat for ages!
(As my case proves, major unintended consequence by enforcing the local language on migrants is that you end up with people who can speak it, but can’t offer their children really basic things like reading to them, because they have no idea what children in that culture actually read. You can’t expect everyone to be as dedicated as my parents – and of course, in that generation, the consequence was not being read to at all, and always communicating with at least one parent through a weird second language filter.)