Arabic "Camp"!

The girls have just gone back to school after their two-week long Herbstferien (Autumn holidays).

For the last ten days, I have been teaching BK1 (10.5 years old) and BK2 (7.5 years old) how to read and write in Arabic. We have been doing between 10 and 30 minutes every day, following the Algerian textbook for 6-year olds. I can already see a lot of progress: BK1's reading and writing are improving, and BK2 has started to read too!

Here you can hear both girls reading (deciphering) a sentence, without me first reading it to them.

You can hear BK4 babbling (shouting!) in the background. It's hard going, I was in my bathrobe, and BK3 was on the iPad. But hey it works somehow.

I hope we can keep the momentum now that the girls are back in school. We'll have to downscale the frequency and duration of lessons. Now that they have gained confidence in their skills though, I am hoping we will manage a weekly session, life permitting.

You know what the best thing is? BK1 said our daily lessons have been FUN!

BK1 can read Arabic!

When we landed at Algiers Airport a few weeks ago, I noticed BK1 (10 years old) looking at the signs in Arabic. I said to her casually that I was hoping she'd be able to read Arabic by the end of our 6-week stay. She then squinted at the sign and spelled out "ma-t-a-r م ط أ ر " (airport), just like that. Turns out she could already read!

During our stay with my parents, particularly at mealtimes, BK1 would decipher the Arabic writing on bottles of water, lemonade etc. Granted, she has a limited grasp of what the words she is reading mean, but still! How many 10-year olds are there who can read in 4 languages?

Compared to our friends' son, who at 10 years of age passed his Arabic GCSEs successfully, grasping how to read is neither here nor there. However, compare that to the vast numbers of kids of a similar age, born to both Algerian parents and who are unable to speak colloquial Arabic, let alone read or write classical Arabic, and I feel sort of ... satisfied.

Yes, the road is long before BK1 achieves some literacy in Arabic, but we're on it :)

You Say Au Revoir, I'll Stick with Bonjour

BK1, aged 7, is in year 2. She has already been in education for three years. School in England starts the September preceding the fifth birthday of the child. Had we been in Germany, this year would have been BK1's first year at school.

I have just picked BK1 up from school. Her teacher told me that BK1 read a French book to her class. Then she went round to Reception (age 5) and year 6 (age 11) classes and read the same book again. Apparently, everyone, big and small, was impressed with BK1's ability to read French.

Later, this year 6 girl came up to me: "BK1 read in French to us today! She is so good! I know no French at all, I can only say bonjour!"
Me: "This is good! I bet you can say au revoir too"
Girl, puzzled look: "What?"

I think it is great that BK1 got to share her ability and see it valued outside of home. On the other hand, how sad that this girl who has been studying French all year can only say bonjour...

Franco-German Cooperation Illustrated

After a week of being pampered by our German auntie, we are now back to me shouting at everyone to pick their clothes up and eat at the table. Remember, I am still hobbling on crutches and unable to use our uber-heavy Dyson.

This week has been an intense German immersion for the girls and me.
At bedtime, two hours after the beloved auntie's departure, BK1 was choosing a book to read. Now you would expect her to pick a book in English or German, particularly after the intense exposure to German.

She chose "La Soupe au Caillou" by Michel Hindenoch.

It must have been a couple of years since I last read this book to the girls. As she is conscious of her higher reading ability in English, BK1 usually dislikes reading aloud in French or German.
Yesterday though, she spontaneously chose to read in French, aloud.

I think this illustrates that consolidating a minority language has a positive impact on the other minority languages, don't you think?

In advance, apologies for BK3's energetic and noisy antics!

Reading

In a funny coincidence, just when Fiona wrote an article about too much reading, BK1 started to read more seriously. We are seeing the exact same thing.

2 weeks ago, she was a normal 5-year-old, playing with her sister, running around a lot, dressing up, the works. And then something happened. She picked up some book and decided to read it on her own. I have no idea which one it was that started the interest.

When we went to do a bit of shopping on Sunday, she took her book and read it in the car even though she was feeling slightly sick. She then carried it around with her when we split up and while the Babelmum shopped, BK1 was sitting on the floor reading at H&M and other shops.

She is half-way into "Pippi Longstocking" currently, and she spends pretty much every second she has with her book.

I certainly remember phases like that, but a lot later in my life! I have this recollection in my head of one day when I wanted to "just read a bit before sleep" and then my father walked in to wake me up for school and I was still at it. I must have been about 15 years old, maybe older.

Also, unlike her I read German books only until I was 18 years old. And BK1 is already reading English, French and German.

Mind boggling, really.

OPOL or OBOL?

I have previously mentioned that I tend to read all books to Lilia in French, whatever the original language of the book. Lilia prefers it that way, and I do too, as I posted some time ago on the subject of reading connection.

I now wonder if that has not slowed her acquisition of reading. She totally grasps the concept of phonics, she can also write words using simple phonics. However, I now realise that the next stage in reading acquisition, that is pattern recognition, is eluding her. The majority of children books we own, and borrow from the library, are in English. Because I read those books in French, she has not learned to match spoken words with written words. That became obvious while reading "We are going on a Bear Hunt". The text is repetitive with simple words such as "and", "it". I would have expected Lilia to recognise those words after a while. But actually, she has not go into the habit of following the text in stories...

I am confident that she will be able to make up for this "delay". However, I can see now that multilingual reading and writing is not as straightforward and natural as multilingual speaking. I suppose the OPOL principle still applies, only it becomes OBOL in the context of reading (One Book One Language).

From today, I will read each book in the language it is written in. I probably should have done this long before. The obvious solution is to get more books in different languages.