Maths and Such
Consultation Email with
Family living in Russia
From: R.N.
Date:Monday, November 01,
2004 12:46 PM
To: Pam Gentry
Subject: re:maths and such
Dear Pam
thanks for this information.
From what you have said, it seems that we may be able to consider Russian
schooling longer than we had origianally thought. That could be helpful, but we
will wait and see, So far, M. is enjoying it, though he is one of three in his
class still not reading in Russian. All the others are reading, and some quite
well. But reading is an issue for him anyway. Maths is the subject he loves.
Regarding reading, how we be
able to know if M. were to have a problem in this area, and is not just slow.
He seems to have a problem in focusing on the detail in order to put it all
together. When he is reading this is particularly apparent. If he concentrates,
or is guided in concentration, he can read quite well. But if he does not
concentrate then he just grabs at words that might fit the context, sometimes
even without regard to the letters in front of him. At least he is trying to
find the meaning, but he is not using the clues! If you have any ideas on how
to help this I would be interested to know.
Also a question. This next
term the teacher has asked that the children start reading at home 10 – 15 mins
a day. I am keen to keep some of this time for some English reading, to keep that
going too. But is that needed? If he were to concentrate on reading only in
Russian, will that cause problems for him later? What do you think?
R.
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From: Pam Gentry
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
12:50 PM
To: R.N.
Subject: re: maths and such
Dear R-
You are wise to be paying
attention to these reading issues without jumping to conclusions. It is hard to say so early, what the problem
might be ... even in reading one's first language without other language
interferences it is wisest to delay "diagnosis" of a learning problem
until sometime after 8 years old because there is so much brain development
that is still happening. M's little
brain has been working hard to process a lot of different kinds of things in
the last couple of years - so a slow start in reading is not grounds for alarm
... just watchful attention.
It is not surprising (and
therefore not worrisome at this point)
that his Russian reading is delayed as compared to his classmates. Reading and writing development build on oral
language development ... and when these skills are developing in a second language
the second language skills build on the developmental level attainment of the
first language (does this makes sense, or is it too technical?) M will probably need encouragement from you
to understand this since his teachers are not likely to be sensitive to this
reality of language development.
In regard to reading at home
... reading in Russian would be very valuable.
This is sound teaching practice.
But I don't think it is desirable for Russian reading to replace his
English reading since it sounds like that has not developed too far, yet. Reading between the lines, I'm hearing that
your concern is that M has a distaste for the additional after school work as
it is and you don't relish the thought of adding more on ....
I've been thinking of this
dilemma for several days. I've got some
ideas, but don't want to load you down with too much at one time.
So think about what I've
said so far, and let me know what you think ... also, Please remind me of M's
age and school experience (and in which languages) to this point. Especially useful, would be identification
of what level of reading in English he has achieved (see attachment and use it
as a checklist for reference).
Then we can talk some more
. And just to settle your mind, if it
ever becomes suspicious that M might be struggling with more than just a slower
time schedule in his development, there are services via SHARE for pursuing
things further.
You are doing great mum!
Keep havin' fun.
Pam
From: Pam Gentry
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
1:45 PM
To: R.N.
Subject: maths and such - one more thing
Hey R.-while waiting for the
last email to send, I thought of another set of questions to ask you:
Tell me a bit about M's
Russian language development....when did he start learning (at what age?) At what point did you feel that he was
getting pretty fluent? And how does his
language development compare now to that of his peers? (you may need to ask his teachers) ... your
answers to these questions will tell me about how M's brain is processing his
Russian (as a bilingual speaker, or as a second language speaker) which will
then inform me a bit more about how to approach his Reading development.
ohhhhhhh. And I forgot to send that attachment! so here it is :-)
blessings,
Pam
From: R.N.
To: Pam Gentry
Sent:Monday, November 15,
2004 6:51 PM
Subject: Reading
Dear Pam
I have a little time to
start this at least. We will see when it gets
finished.
M started learning Russian
when we arrived in StP back in 1998. At
that time he was 18 mths. We
had a Russian speaking nanny to start with.
Later, after a year in
Australia for the birth of E, he started
attending Detsky Sad 3 days
a week from 9am to 3pm. When we moved to
S we put him Sad here and
they required full time attendence – 5
days a week, 8am – 5pm. He
was in that environment for 3 years and soon was
speaking Russian “without an
accent”. His preference of language always has
been English however.
Then we returned to
Australia for 9 mth furlough and he started school in
Australia, aqnd loved the
experience. When we returned to S he
attended Detsky Sad for the
summer before starting school in September. He
was still eligible to attend
Sad and we thought this would be the best way
to help him recover his
Russian language skills. It proved to be so, and now
again they tell me he speaks
“with maybe a small accent”. In social
situations he easily
switches between the two languages and is learning to
be a translator for us when
we need the occasional word or phrase
translated. We do not use
this privilidge a lot. I expect his grammar is not
perfect, but I can’t hear
the mistakes.
So that is his history of
Russian language acquisition. I have had a browse
through the Reading Skills
chart. As far as comprehension in English he is
at and advanced level. He
easily anticipates a plot and will talk about the
character of a person and
assess behaviour etc. As far as Oral reading, he
would be at a developing level
– word attack skills are heavily dependent on
the context of pictures and
what he thinks is coming. He does not easily
attack a word from left to
right but takes the letter group as a whole.
Sometimes he applies rules
but not consistently. Usually he sounds out words
by letter and then finds the
word that closest fits that sound. He does NO
reading by himself. He will
look at books and enjoy pictures, read signs in
pictures, but will not
attempt to read the text himself unless he has
already read it and is
convinced it is easy. Even then, it is not likely to
happen.
At school they are just
starting to teach syllables in written form, and yet
most of the children in his
class are already reading. I am not worried that
he is slower, just wondering
what we can do to help him develop a healthy
attitude toward reading. 10
minutes of reading are often very tension
filled!
So that is where we are up
to with reading. R
From: Pam Gentry
To: R.N.
Sent: Wednesday, November
17, 2004 12:58 PM (GMT-6)
Subject: Reading
Hi R-
great responses here. I want to take some time to really think
through things with you, but don't have the time at the moment. The quick response for now is that M has
learned Russian in parallel to his English (rather than as a second
language). Interestingly, this means
that his Russian language learning is actually, physically located in the same
part of the brain as his English! (unlike the rest of us poor people who have
to access different parts of our brains for the second language).
What does this mean in terms
of his reading acquisition? Long term,
I would expect that he will be a "bilingual" reader as well. But since he's gone back and forth between language
environments and learning environments before his reading was really
established in English, his brain is probably trying to sort things out. This would be my first guess regarding his
reading delay for both languages. Give
him time. He'll get it. I've written a newsletter for parents that
explains a lot about reading and things you can do with your child to help them
learn to read. You can apply these
principals to his reading in BOTH Russian and English :-). Are you limited on the size of attachments that
you can receive? (the file size is 383
kb because it has a lot of formatting)
Alternatively, if you have pretty good internet access you can
view/download it from my website:
www.geocities.com/dvenewa
And if even that is too
much, I could reduce it to a text only document (but you might think it is
REALLY boring :-)
I'll write more later,
Pam