thank you all for the great tips! A lot of ideas I can use!!!
I should had mentioned right away too that when it comes to reading, he has ZERO interest in me reading books to him
Never has and my almost 4 year old either. Neither one of my boys seem to have the patience to listen / watch me read. So all DS2 learned about words is from the Leapfrog videos and from Word World and Super Why on PBS! lol ... He had me tell him the names and sounds of letters when he first started being interested in them (would bring me plastic Alphabet soup letters from Vtech that we have). Everything else he just picked up from around him. I'm still amazed he understands how reading works when he never had me or anyone read to him? He just "gets it" ... never had a book upside down, never tried to read backwards ... he just knows? He has a ton of book in his room and just likes to grab them and go through them but has no need for me to be involved. I did get couple audio books a little while ago so I'll see if maybe he's interested in those now!
Also ... we are a dual language household ... my husband and I speak Czech as our primary language and speak to both boys in Czech but also in English ... a lot of times I just use both languages to make sure they understand both. The 4 year old understands EVERYTHING I tell him in Czech, yet he chooses to answer me in English, with few exceptions ... I'm guessing he just goes with what's easier and can't differentiate much between the two just yet. With my 2-year old, I speak to him mainly in Czech for now so he gets the basic knowledge right from the start (it's a very tough language to learn unless you learn from birth). Yet, the words he's reading are all English
and he understands what he's reading. So, I guess just TV exposure is enough for him to learn the language.
now, to get to my question ... given we are doing 2 languages, should I first let him learn to read English well and then add the second language? (there are extra letters and symbols to learn) ... or do I start mixing it in right away? I have a teenage stepson who never learned to read / write Czech though he understands everything and speaks pretty fluently too but he didn't live with us when he was little and wasn't interested when he moved in with us. I would really like to see both our little guys not only speak the 2nd language but also read and write. So, do I wait with that till later so their little brains don't get all fried??? lol ... my thinking is once the younger one who's interested in reading gets the full grasp of reading in English (in a few years), he'd be ready to learn the new alphabet and phonic rules for Czech without getting it too confused?
I'd love to go and "explore" with them both but they are such wild children! The older one has severe Sensory Processing Disorder and the younger one is just wild and crazy too and looks like he'll be getting OT for Sensory problems too though he doesn't have the concentration issues the older one has. The 2-year old's concentration problem is related to him either being interested or not where as the 4 year old seems focused on too many things at the same time. ... so any trip we take means me pushing them in a double stroller because if I let one of them out, I might as well pack it all up and go home! lol ... we do go out a lot, but I do have to have them restrained!
But I'm very much enjoying the ride right now!
... DS2 is being more and more involved with us every day (he used to be so withdrawn to the point of us seriously considering him being on the Autistic spectrum ... but now everything points out to him simply being interested in other things and not really paying any attention to us and stuff around him) and he now does the goofiest things that just make us laugh and wonder "where did that come from???"
sorry for making it so long ... I just don't have anyone else around to talk to about any of this
