Tag Archives: books

From Summer Slide…to Reading Pride!

photo credit: KOMUnews @flickr.com

“[Here] is what reading is all about: yes, it will make kids smarter and give them a better start in life than non-readers, but for me that’s not the point. The point is that reading is fun…”

This is a quote from a recent article in British newspaper The Guardian by Charlie Higson, author of a variety of YA fiction including the Young James Bond series. Sure, as a writer he might have a vested interest in promoting reading, but there is no denying the inherent truth of what he is saying. To get kids to read, and keep reading, particularly over the long summer months, it must be a pleasurable experience. This is definitely the point that we need to get across to children now that the sound of the school bell has faded and it seems like forever before the leaves start to turn and they’re back at their desks. Summer is for having fun, and that includes reading!

Bilingual Books and the Summer Learning Slide

Many families, teachers, and librarians worry about the summer learning slide, and with good reason. A study done by Reading Rockets found that for “116 first, second, and third graders in a school in a middle class neighborhood …the decoding skills of nearly 45% of the participants and the fluency skills of 25% declined between May and September.” Attention clearly needs to paid to reading over summer vacation if we are to combat this trend.

For families who want to renew their children’s enthusiasm for reading, bilingual books can add a new dimension. For families who speak a language other than English at home, bilingual books can be a comforting way to read in their home language while simultaneously building their English skills over the summer.

Here are some tips to help your children and students use bilingual books for having fun and improving their reading skills before September:

  • Start with an old favorite. A great access point for bilingual reading is a book your child already knows and loves. If he or she is a fan of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, reading it in English and then in French will make the new language seem less intimidating. Kids will enjoy matching up the French vocabulary with the pictures and English words they already know!

 There are also a variety of folktales and stories from around the world available in bilingual editions (English and another language text on the same page), so children who speak a different home language can also find stories that are familiar to them. A group of parents who want to encourage their children to become bilingual readers could find a set of books to swap throughout the summer, so no-one gets bored!

  • Become the star of your book. Bring your bilingual story to life by getting kids to act it out using words from the less familiar language. Not only is this fun, but the kinaesthetic element will help embed their new vocabulary. The creativity and freedom involved in this activity will go a long way towards helping children understand that reading is enjoyable and reading a new language is even more fun when you practice it together!
  • Make a scene! Why not try using cardboard and found objects to recreate a scene that you see in the bilingual book you’re reading? The kids can go on a hunt to gather what they need and then label the scene in both languages used in the book.
  • Talk it out. Start your own mini-book group, even with your pre-schoolers! This would be especially useful for parents who are trying to encourage their children to speak English alongside a different home language.

At school, children are used to discussing books. The question-and-answer structure will be familiar to them and therefore allow them to feel more comfortable and take more risks speaking their new language. Simple discussions about feelings and plot are great tools to help embed new vocabulary: “How does the explorer feel about the animals at the end of the book? What has changed?” “What were your favorite plants that you saw in the drawings?” See if you can get your children to answer in both languages. They’ll feel more involved in what they’ve read and excited to continue their literary journey!

  • Let a librarian help. Kristina Robertson from colorincolorado.org, a website dedicated to helping the families and educators of English/Dual Language Learners, writes, “Libraries offer all kinds of resources and opportunities to ELLs and their families, but many families may not know about the kinds of services and programs that libraries offer.” Well, summer is the time to check it out! Head to your local library and see what bilingual resources they have available. Many libraries also hold summer reading challenges (see the next tip) which can easily be adapted to support bilingual reading. Colorin Colorado provides a useful list of links to different programs in major cities – if yours isn’t on here, a quick search on the internet may also provide results.

Are you a librarian? For you, summer is a great time to reach out to the community and welcome ELLs into your stacks. As Robertson writes, many families are unaware of the great summer reading programs and bilingual resources you offer – so get some flyers translated and start sticking them up around town!

…And here’s a list of other great ways librarians are improving literacy for ELLs all over the country: http://www.languagelizard.com/newsarticle8.htm

  • Challenge yourself! Embrace your child’s competitive spirit and let them enter the Scholastic Summer Challenge. Kids log minutes and see “how far round the world” they can read – as a parent, you could log double for bilingual books as they’ve technically read them twice!
  • Banish “Are we there yet?”s. Ah, the long car ride- a breeding ground for “I’m boooored!”s or, worse, long silences broken only by the tapping of little fingers on a Nintendo DS! But it doesn’t have to be this way: find a bilingual children’s book on cd, or record your own as a podcast, and bring it with you on your way to Grandma’s to keep the kids entertained and prevent the dreaded summer learning slump.

Summer is such a perfect opportunity to show kids how much fun bilingual reading can be. How are you planning to use bilingual books to prepare your kids for the exciting year ahead at school?

For more ideas about summer literacy, check out the following Language Lizard blogs:

Summer Literacy Programs

AND

Bilingual Books for Summertime Reading

 

 

 

 

Keep The Kids Reading $50 Giveaway!

Do you have trouble keeping your children reading over the Summer? With all of the fun things to do for the little ones, sometimes we forget to keep them reading during the summer break to ease their transition back into school during the fall.

Luckily, we have a solution for you that might help…

How about some NEW books?

We’ve teamed up with Erin Howard – Mom Blogger and Editor at OnceAMomAlwaysAMom.com to get the word out to other moms and parents alike about our Free $50 Gift Certificate Giveaway to be used at LanguageLizard.com!

 

At Language Lizard we are providing award-winning books and resources for children in 40+ different languages. Teachers, schools, moms, dads & grandparents are encouraged to enter this Free Giveaway. This Giveaway is open to USA & Canada residents, and it will run until July 3, 2013 so enter below today.

It’s free to enter and oh so easy! GOOD LUCK!

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

photo credit: Morgan @ flickr. com

Bilingual Book Promotion Launched on International Literacy Day!

To celebrate International Literacy Day, Language Lizard is launching its Bilingual Book Promotion which will last until the end of October.  Visit the Language Lizard website to learn more about this promotion and how you can receive free bilingual books!

The theme for the 2012 International Literacy Day is literacy and peace. As the UNESCO website states:

“Literacy contributes to peace as it brings people closer to attaining individual freedoms and better understanding the world, as well as preventing or resolving conflict. The connection between literacy and peace can be seen by the fact that in unstable democracies or in conflict-affected countries it is harder to establish or sustain a literate environment.”

Please join us in celebrating this wonderful day!

To learn more about the Language Lizard Bilingual Book Promotion, visit the Language Lizard website. You have until the end of October to win free bilingual books!

Bilingual Books in Bilingual Classrooms

Bilingual Books for Bilingual Classrooms

Picture this: A classroom bustling with students engaged in a variety of activities. On one side of the room, the teacher mingles with a group of students who are working on a collage. It is spread out across a wide table and students are discussing, in English and Spanish, where to place the different items. The teacher meanders by, a student asks for some advice in English, and a short discussion takes place.

A few minutes later the same teacher approaches a student sitting in a bean bag chair on the floor reading a book in English. The student asks the teacher, in Spanish, about the meaning of one of the words in the book, and together they talk about the word and its context in the sentence.

This easy movement between two languages is happening in many bilingual classrooms throughout the United States.  Not only do classrooms such as these help non-English speaking students learn English, it also helps native English speakers learn a second language.  Bilingual classrooms give students the opportunity to become truly bilingual. Continue reading Bilingual Books in Bilingual Classrooms

$300 Bilingual Book Giveaway!

bilingual book giveawayLanguage Lizard is giving away $300 worth of bilingual book gift certificates!

There are four different ways to qualify for this giveaway so make sure to go to Language Lizard’s BILINGUAL BOOK GIVEAWAY page and find out how you can enter. It is easy!

With books in over 40 different languages, you are sure to find something perfect for your children, your students and/or your school! So enter today!

Good luck!

Bilingual Children: 5 Tips for Using Language in Context

There are so many wonderful ways for our children to learn languages today. Online programs offer interactive multimedia opportunities that we could have only dreamed of having when we were young. Bilingual books and DVDs can be found in many libraries around the country, and children’s language learning classes abound.

What parents and teachers sometimes forget is the value of context when it comes to learning a language. Flash cards and online vocabulary games can be fun, but they don’t offer the kind of language development that human conversation provides. We use language for communication, and therefore it is best learned in its natural form: through discussions, conversations and stories.

Continue reading Bilingual Children: 5 Tips for Using Language in Context

Multicultural and Language-Learning Gifts: Our Top Tips for Holiday Gift-Giving

Twinkling lights, fires in the fireplace, and the smell of fresh pine needles – the holidays are upon us! For many, the most difficult part of this time of year is figuring out the perfect gift for friends and loved ones.

For those of you looking for bilingual and multicultural products, we have put together a list of some favorites which would make perfect holiday gifts for young language learners, multicultural children and a special teacher. Let us know if you can’t find what you are looking for. We are more than happy to help.

Continue reading Multicultural and Language-Learning Gifts: Our Top Tips for Holiday Gift-Giving