How to Raise a Multi-literate Child – The Parents’ Guide + A Giveaway
Raise Multi-literate Children
Please welcome my fellow teacher friend, Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori! He is the author of The Parents’ Guide to Raising Multi-literate Children, His website Library4Multilinguals has a growing number of tools and resource for parents and educators to guide children to read and write in the target languages and reach the goal to raise multi-literate kids.
Yoshito is here to tell his story of growing up multilingual and share his home-tested and classroom-tested literacy-building tips, tools, and resource to guide you to use them with your child. I wish his book was around when I started our family’s bilingual journey. *Make sure you joining the 2 signed book giveaway at the end!!!
Raise Multi-literate Children
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Is it important to teach our multilingual children to read and write in their home languages?
For me, based on my personal experience, the answer has always been a definite “YES!” and when my wife and I decided to have children, it was clear that we would raise them multilingual AND multi-literate.
My name is Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori, the author of The Parents’ Guide to Raising Multi-literate Children. I have also been a teacher of French and Spanish in secondary schools in the United Kingdom for the past ten years. More importantly, I am a dad to my two sons aged 8 and 6.
I grew up bilingual French-Japanese and learned to read and write in Japanese while living in France. Between the age of 5 and 10, I attended a Japanese supplementary school. Later, I attended an international school throughout high school where I studied literature, history, and geography in Japanese. Even with all of that, learning to read and write (especially the Kanji, Chinese characters used in Japanese) has been a real struggle!!
There were two main reasons for this
I was taught Japanese as it was taught to children living in Japan.
As a teenager, I questioned the necessity to learn to read and write in Japanese. All my subjects were becoming increasingly demanding, and I prioritized some over others … And Japanese became a subject I would study if I had time. Also, I never thought I would live in Japan, so speaking and understanding the language seemed to be enough. I had no idea back then how much being able to read Japanese would help me improve my speaking and understanding.
Now I consider myself lucky for everything growing up bilingual brought me: connecting with family members and my roots, becoming a bridge between cultures, being able to see and understand the world from different perspectives, etc.
Not being able to read and write in Japanese properly, I also know all the additional benefits being literate brings! The main reason I want to help my sons become literate in all their languages (French, Korean, and English) is to provide them independence. When one can read and write in their home language(s) it enables them to:
Access a wider range of information in written (as well as audio) format. Their curiosity is therefore not bound to one language.
Learn more vocabulary and expressions by reading books. In our daily lives, we only talk about certain things. By reading books, our children have the opportunity to encounter other words (This can, of course, be done while watching TV too. Being able to read widens the possible access to whatever our children are interested in.)
Feel part of the community (as opposed to feeling like an outsider) when they visit their family, as they can read and understand everything written around them.
When I started teaching my sons to read in our home languages (French and Korean), it was important to use my own difficult experience as lessons to make sure I could help my sons become multi-literate in a more enjoyable way. I also didn’t want the time we would spend together working on literacy to become a source of frustration or a “necessary” painful moment.
My personal experience is unfortunately quite common for children learning to read and write in their home languages. I am however lucky that my teaching experience gave me the tools, skills, and reflection to do it differently with my sons.
The Parents’ Guide to Raising Multi-literate Children was then a natural consequence. I wanted to give parents and educators the knowledge, mindset and tools to help their children and students become multi-literate in an enjoyable way.
The aims of this book
To help the reader understand the specificities of learning to read and write in a minority/home language (It is different to learning to read and write in a majority language or a foreign one).
To show parents that learning to read and write doesn’t need to be done sitting down at a desk with a textbook and a bunch of worksheets. You can lead them through jumping up and down, running, playing a board game, or a card game. In a nutshell, it can be done whileplaying! Learning becomes a consequence of all the fun.
To give the tools (concrete activities, mindset, and reflection) to enable parents and educators to teach literacy using games.
One of the essential keys to learning to read and write is repetition. When the focus is too much on literacy, it can look like an unpleasant but necessary practice. Therefore, in each game and activity presented in this book, reading and writing is justified by being the necessary step to access the fun.
Tool #2 Memory is based on the well-known Memory game.
In the original game, you have two sets of identical cards that you place with the pictures facing down. If you return two identical cards, you win the pair. The person who finds the most pairs wins.
If instead of having identical pictures you have pairs of pictures and images. The players now need to read the word correctly to understand if they match the image. The player, therefore, needs to read to play the game.
As shown in the pictures at the end, this book equips you with the insight that will allow you to teach reading and writing by choosing and adapting the activities to match your child’s level. You will see the aim of the activity, why and how the learning takes place, and possible variations to support or challenge your child.
Tool #25 Word illustrations.
Your child needs to use only letters/characters of the writing system you are teaching them to create a drawing. This could be a robot, an animal, people, objects, etc. By writing them and paying attention to their details to incorporate them in their drawing, they memorize them effortlessly.
Tool #68 Complete the Speech bubbles
It is a writing activity that can be presented to a child who is becoming quite confident writing. This time, the pictures invite your child to work out the story. Then they complete the speech bubbles with their interpretation of the story.
The Parents’ Guide to Raising Multi-literate Children: 70+ fun, engaging, and purposeful activities to liven up literacy learning
The Parents’ Guide to Raising Multi-literate Children: 70+ fun, engaging, and purposeful activities to liven up literacy learning
If you are interested in learning more about my book, you can head over to www.library4multilinguals.com where you will be able to find more information and download the first chapter for free.
Ultimately, my wife and I want our sons to grow up fully appreciating their multilingual and multicultural identity – British, French, Korean, and Japanese. We see multi-literacy as an important component that will reinforce their sense of identity.
P.S.: Note that I am not passing on the Japanese language to my sons as this would demand even more time and organization than what I can comfortably manage. However, I do pass on the Japanese culture through stories of my childhood, family members, and ancestors. We also play Japanese games, and my mum often reads them Japanese fables (by translating them into French).
2 Signed Book of The Parents’ Guide to Raising Multi-literate Children (paperback) GIVEAWAY!
We are giving away two signed books. Each winner will receive one paperback copy of The Parent’s Guide to Raising Multi-literate Children. To enter please go to the Rafflecopter below.
