2013 - Raising a Trilingual Child Blog Posts in Review

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!