Category: Reading

No-prep activities for multilingual children

19/8/2022

By Ana Elisa Miranda, Ute Limacher-Riebold and Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori

Whether we are traveling or staying home during school holidays, both are great opportunities to learn something new and to connect with our children.
However, when we are on vacation, we might want to keep things as simple and relaxed as possible.
This Summer, we created a series of videos where we shared the easiest ways to engage our children with our home languages.

In this video I share 3 no-prep activities that support reading skills for toddlers, primary school kids and teenagers. Reading in the home language doesn’t really require a lot of preparation. We hope these activities inspire you!

It might take a while for our children to switch to using our home language more often when daycares and schools (in the other language) are out, but there are many ways to support them in becoming more confident in our home languages.

In this video, Ute shares a few activities that foster speaking skills for toddlers, primary school children and teenagers that do not require any preparation.

Regular practice of reading and writing in the home language is crucial for our children to improve their literacy skills.
Check out Yoshito’s ideas of no-prep writing activities we can do anytime, anywhere:

We also met live and talked about How to make the most of holidays in our home country. The three of us were fortunate enough to be able to visit family in “our countries” or countries where one of our languages are spoken. Watch the recording and see ideas and strategies for all ages!

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Have fun with your languages and find hundreds of activity ideas for your multilingual family on our books:

The Toolbox for Multilingual Families
The Parents’ Guide to Raising Multi-literate Children

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Reading: 3 no-prep activities for multilingual children

18/6/2022

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By Ana Elisa Miranda, Ute Limacher-Riebold and Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori

When school is out, some of us might travel, while others might stay home and do different activities. All of these are great opportunities to learn something new and to connect with our children.

However, when we are on vacation, we might want to keep things as simple and relaxed as possible.

In this video we share 3 no-prep activities that support reading skills:

For toddlers
For primary school kids
For teenagers

Reading in the home language doesn’t really require a lot of preparation. We hope these activities inspire you!

Have fun with your languages!

Find hundreds of activity ideas for your multilingual family on our books:
The Toolbox for Multilingual Families
The Parents’ Guide to Raising Multi-literate Children

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Reading with children from birth to two

20/4/2022

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My baby is turning two! What a wonderful and challenging age!

Today I thought I’d share our experience of reading with her, in Portuguese and Dutch, and how important this has been for her development.

I hope you feel encouraged to find a bit of time everyday to share a book with your tot.

→ When A. was a few weeks old, my family sent a box full of books from Brazil. I was so happy to have a variety of stories to read to her. I often did this while she lay on her playmat. She liked listening to my voice and looking at the colorful pictures.

→ Just before she turned 4 months old, we went back to work and A. started going to daycare. I only saw her for a few minutes in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening. Time was spent mostly on feeding, bathing, and bedtime, so it was very difficult to keep the language exposure I would like... I still sang, talked and tried to read a book everyday.

→ When A. was 8 months old, she was very interested in books with different textures. She would reach, grab, scratch, smile, babble, put them in her mouth and look a bit puzzled (Wait, this isn’t food?).

→ A couple of months later, our nursing chair turned into our reading nook! She loved sitting on my lap and listening to stories at bedtime. And when the book was done, she looked down at the book basket on the floor, asking for more!

We started going to the library every 3-4 weeks. We love to always have different books at home.

→ At 1y6m, she could find and point at some things I named (ball, cat, fish), sometimes she pointed at animals and looked at me - expecting me to make the animal sound. Later she started making sounds for dog, cow and horse, as well as fish lips.

→ Reading Comprehension... for babies!?

The ultimate goal of reading anything is to understand a message - be it very simple or super complex.

We need to know the words and ideas presented in the text, so that we can make connections to what we know about the world around us.

The world of a baby/toddler is their home, family, toys, pets... so those are the connections they start to make when you read with them!

A. started to spontaneously look for things she knew we had in the house, to match the things she saw on her books. She can also say that she has seen or done the same things that are on the book (rode a bike, went on the swings, saw a dog...)

→ On PRINT AWARENESS, one of the early pillars of literacy development: I almost jumped when A. (1y8m) pointed at a page of the book we were reading and said, "A!" (in Portuguese, pronounced ‘Ah’). I did NOT expect that, but it actually didn't come as a surprise.

Literacy development goes hand in hand with language development and it starts even before birth.

Being intentional and consistent with language and literacy experiences, in a natural and enjoyable way, is so beneficial - and it's never too early.

I did not TEACH her the letters, but:

* I've been reading with her everyday since she was a few days old.

* We have blocks and tiles that spell her name and she's curious about them. I point, say the sounds and put them in order.

* I read - and point with my finger - everything that might interest her in our environment.

She's been recognizing A and O consistently and every time we color together she says, "Mama, A!" and hands me a crayon so I can write. We'll continue like this: naturally, playfully and intentionally fostering languages and literacy. What an exciting start!

Now she’s almost two and we can see that we owe a great deal of her language development - in both Dutch and Portuguese - to the habit of reading aloud regularly.

And she loves reading so much that she often goes to bed crying for “Nog boekje!” or “Mais livro!” (more books).

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How's YOUR experience of reading with your children?

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You might also like:
Support literacy even before your child starts to read
Reading aloud with multilingual children of all ages (YouTube video)

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Reading aloud with multilingual children (of all ages)

26/3/2022

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By Ana Elisa Miranda, Ute Limacher-Riebold and Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori

Reading aloud is one of the most powerful things we can do to support language and literacy development.

This simple activity has an incredible impact on vocabulary, knowledge, confidence, emotional connection between children and adults, and much more.

For a multilingual family, reading aloud in different languages is like a window into different cultures and into the sounds, rhythm, words, structure and beauty of each language.

By reading aloud together we enrich and empower our children's language skills, helping them grow into confident multilinguals.

In this video, we talk about:

How to read aloud and make it engaging.
Why reading aloud is important in a multilingual family.
Which language we should read in.
The overall benefits of reading aloud with our children.
How we can read together with our children when they are:

- Babies
- Toddlers and pre-school children
- School-aged children and teenagers

We also give tips on how to support children who read in different scripts. So, stick to the end and don’t miss these!

Watch the video here and let us know in the comments: what’s your top tip for reading with children?

More about reading aloud:

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22 Reading Prompts for Multilingual Children

10/12/2021

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December has started with wet, cold, dark days here in Belgium.

But also with sweet smells of candles and baking, comfy sweaters, slowing down and looking forward to a break.

How have you been?

I have a gift and an invitation for you today: let's read more. You, me, our kids.

Here are 22 Reading Prompts for us to try this month. Let's get cozy, slow down, enjoy good stories together. Download it here.

Have a lovely end of 2021!