Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Experiences with bilingual kids

I would like to hear your experiences with bilingual kids. Especially about their language development, learning to read, schooling, testing etc.

DD is 26mo and bilingual since infant. Home we use our own language and she goes to fulltime daycare in english environment as we live here in US. She is doing quite well with both of languages, I would guess quite normal maybe bit advanced in both of them. As she is so young we have not really had any struggles with her yet but I would like to hear what others have experienced.

In most of the text I have found on web they associate bilingualism with lower socio-economical status and mostly address that and not really bilingualism. Also our language is not related to english (not based on latin) and offers bit more challenges to learn together with english as the structure and words are all different.

I have bilingual kids. DH speaks English to them, I speak another language to them. What you said about your 2nd language applies to ours as well.

From what I know bilingual children face a few disadvantages at the beginning but in the long run they can only gain from it. At the beginning a typical bilingual child has similar vocabulary size like his age mates. While the total number of words is similar, it is distributed between the two languages. Therefore the child may look like he knows fewer words than his age mates. This usually evens out by K.

In our case, DS7 started reading in English at the age of 3. He read his first few chapter books still way before turning 4. He learned how to read in his second language at the same time like reading English. Don't ask me why, it was his idea not mine

DS5 started reading in English at the age of 2, chapter books at 3. He is currently reading Harry Potter. Somewhere along the way he learned how to read in his 2nd language. We found out about it when he was about 3 1/2.

All that said both of the boys read almost exclusively in English these days. English is also their stronger language now but they do speak both languages each day.

As for testing, DS7 is DYS. When tested at the age of 5 his vocabulary was his relative weakness. His VIQ was still in 99% though. The psychologist even put in his report that his verbal scores were probably lower due to him being bilingual. She said that it should no longer be an issue at the age of 7 and up. If you ask me, his vocabulary is still his relative weakness and always will be. That's mostly because he is a mathy kid and his math aptitude will always trump his vocabulary abilities.

DS5 on the other hand scored 19 (the highest score) on vocabulary. I was shocked when I found out. According to the same psychologist, vocabulary is his significant relative strength even though he scored bunch of 18s on different subjects and his PIQ is greater than VIQ.

DS5 has always been more verbal than DS7. Would they both scored better if they were not bilingual? May be, but I would bet my money that their real VIQ isn't significantly higher than what the test showed.

HTH

My eldest learned English at home and French at an immersion school. He speaks like a native and I speak as much French as I can to him.

He went to an English-only school last year after four years of French school. His written English wasn't his strongest subject last year; this doesn't surprise me. His verbal expression has always been very high (probably because he didn't start French until he was four).

US-born Americans don't really understand the idea of speaking multiple languages the way that people out there in much of the world do, which is probably why you're seeing articles referencing low socioeconomic status with bilingualism. There's a huge focus here on teaching English to disadvantaged Hispanic kids (often called bilingual education, which is probably why you're getting so many search hits like the ones you described) and a lack of understanding (IMHO, anyway!) on how achieve this.

Val

DD has been exposed to 3 languages since birth. English from me, my DH's native language, and a third language, which I speak fluently but am not a native speaker. At home DH and I speak a mixture of English and his language with each other. We each speak our native language exclusively to DD (although I speak sometimes with her in Dh's language because I figure she'll pick up English easy enough). The third language I've never actually spoken with her but she's been with me in a number of situations where I speak it and I'm thinking of joining a playgroup with other speakers just to keep up my skills more than anything else.

Anyways, I was completely normal with language skills and DH was late (even though we are both gifted) so we really expected DD to be a late talker, especially with being bilingual and all. However, she started talking at 6 months. So far all her words have been in English (with the exception of saying daddy in DH's language) but she can clearly understand commands in both languages. She mostly gets confused when she hears me talk in the 3rd language so I don't think she's really had enough exposure for it to sink it yet.

HTH

Mr W gets Spanish during the day from the sitter and English from us at night and both together from us on the weekends. We read him books in both.

Before the sitter came at 5 months, he was saying a lot of English words. At 6 mos he stopped being verbal and got pretty quiet except for repeating words in either language he did not know. On occasion, he would ask specific questions like "What is a Mercedes?" Lately he has added adverbs, "Daddy don't go away no more!"

He can follow complex instructions in both languages and can understand TV in both.

I think that had we stuck to English only, he would be more verbal than he is. When confronted with complexity, he becomes cautious and will not act until he understands things.

Oh, I forgot I wanted to mention something.

I had the opportunity to work with a number of preteen bilingual/trilingual kids. English was their second language and these kids were all from middle/upper middle class families (with one exception).

All the kids had at least one parent at home that spoke English and then picked up their native language either through the other parent or school. The kids all were able to speak English like native speakers, although they did have to occasionally ask the meaning of a word. However, sometimes their reading and writing skills lagged behind. They prefered to read/write in their native language and many times would switch to their native language to talk to each other. However, in homes where both parents spoke English (or it was a single parent situation) those kids were more likely to have better reading skills in English and read in English for fun.

DH speaks English exclusively to DS9mo. I speak mostly English to DS. When I speak my native language to DS, he always laughs hysterically. My parents, who watch him during the day, speak our native language to DS. He doesn't seem to have an issue with the two different languages.

I really want DS to be able to read and write in my native language, but I am afraid of the amount of work that would involve.

Do your kids know how to read and write in other non-Latin-based languages?