The 2013 year is behind the shoulders. It was the first year in the life of this blog.
Thank you everyone for joining me! I appreciate your positive feed back!
Even though my children and my ambitions to teach them three languages (Russian, Italian and English) kept me busy, I tried hard and I managed to find time to share my thoughts, ideas and discoveries with you.
I started the blog with the post
Raising Bilingual / Multilingual child. Where to start? describing our family strategy:
Exposing our kids to languages and created the multilingual family
Language Strategies page for your reference.
I believe reading is essential in teaching a child speaking and developing a rich vocabulary. Guess when did I start reading to my child? You can find the answer in
Bilingual child: when to start reading? post and the tips are in
How to read to a baby?
Do you know anything about virtual babysitters? Skype has opened a virtual window between our living room and Russian speaking grandparents. I am so thankful my parents could support me in many ways: virtual babysitting is one of it.
Preserving grandchild - grandparent bond and keeping up the minority language with video calling.
How do you call the languages you and your spouse speaks? I believe
Naming languages with their proper name also helps children to separate the languages easily and gives a wider view without limiting to only family boundaries.
As a parent teaching children a minority language I learnt how not to pass on an opportunity to expose them to new words:
Walking with your baby and showing him the world.
Ha ha ha or correcting your child's pronunciation problem. post was born after a lot of worries about my son's wrong pronunciation of the Russian letter "X".
I asked myself and answered a question:
How much time do we have to influence a child's minority language development?
When my younger child started speaking I was wondering what language she would speak with her brother:
What language do multilingual siblings speak to each other? I am so glad that as of today it is still Russian - the minority language and hope it will stay this way for at list one more year.
I should stress once more that it is important to be proactive in introducing new vocabulary in minority language:
Being proactive in exposing your child to the new vocabulary .
I answer the question:
Should I correct my child speaking?
As parents speaking a minority language, we also need to work on being a good example for our children:
How to prepare yourself to be a speaking model for your child.
Many of us have ups and downs on the way to multilingualism. The right motivation helps a lot in staying on track, but this is the reality:
"No English!" Motivation is the key.
Some fun activities for language development were born while interacting with my daughter:
Mixing art, material objects and imagination - a recipe for language development.
My friend asked me a very good question I found an answer to:
Can babies distinguish foreign languages?
I welcomed Amalia, a guest on my blog pages with her amazing
Life story: A Journey to Multilingualism. If you are bilingual or multilingual from birth and would like to share your story, feel free to contact me via email: trilingualchildren [at] gmail [dot] com.
Many of you agreed that
Teaching the letter sounds before letter names helps in facilitating teaching a child to read.
If you know good documentaries about nature, please share them in the comments of
A touch of nature on a rainy day post.
If you are expecting a child and/or still have to figure out how to merge the multicultural traditions, reading the post
When to give your child Christmas presents - an international family challenge. might give you some ideas and help you to make the right decision.
My children enjoy reading books with me and I am glad that many blog readers found very useful the
Russian children's books list . You can also review my kids favorite Russian cartoons and movies at the end of the book list. Some more resources in Russian:
Russian winter season kids songs and
books review.
Happy holidays to everyone!
Let the 2014 bring you love and happiness!