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Episode 06 – The Bilingual Child Part 2

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In this Part 2 of The Bilingual Child, we talk about the ways on how your child can maintain a second language.  

In case you missed part 1, I highly encourage you to tune in to part 1: Episode 005 – The Bilingual Child Part 1

Now in this episode, we continue the discussion about the bilingual child, in particular:

  • Factors that influence learning another language for the bilingual child.
  • Ways to motivate your child to speak another language.
  • Common myths about bilingual language development.
  • Advantages of speaking another language.
  • How to assess language difficulties for children with another language at home.
  • Practical tips for educators.

Factors that influence learning another language for the bilingual child

Areas to consider:

  • Pattern of exposure – as a parent or educator, you should be mindful as to the exposure levels that your child has with each language because that’s going to determine how much practice your child gets.
  • Opportunity to practice with an experienced speaker – by listening to a speaker who speaks the second language quite well, it provides a good model of language and a good avenue for the child to be able to imitate from that and get corrections.
  • Importance placed on home language maintenance – it really depends what the family goals are when using the second language at home
  • Motivation – how motivated is the child to speak that second language
  • Culture
  • Child’s learning ability

Ways to motivate your child to speak another language

If your child is brought up with 2 languages in the beginning, it is important you provide lots of opportunities for the child to hear and use both languages.  It is key for your child to have lots of practice, because “if you don’t use it, you lose it”.

It is also important to establish your goals as a family.  In our case, I speak Italian and my husband speaks Greek, but we were purposeful in using English as our main language at home and have Greek and Italian reinforced by the grandparents.

7 ways to motivate your child to speak the minority language:

  1. Habit – make it a habit to speak another language at home.
  2. Create a need – look at ways that you can create a need like setting up a Skype call with family in the home country or travelling back to your home country.
  3. Positive feedback – make it a positive experience for your child to speak the minority language
  4. Incentives – as a parent, you need to understand what motivates your child like an object or anything that will encourage them to speak the second language
  5. Be a role model – speak the minority language yourself as much as possible.  Switching languages will not confuse your child.
  6. Get books in your home language – this increases exposure to different vocabulary, grammar and experiences related to the other language.
  7. Think of fun activities – dance, music and cultural activities that will make your child feel a part of that minority language tradition.

The common myths about bilingual language development

  • Switching between languages is detrimental and shows confusion
  • Home language prevents learning of the community language
  • A second language can cause language delay
  • A second language can be learned purely from tv, music, and books
  • You should wait until the child is older before introducing a second language

Advantages of speaking another language

  • Delayed onset of dementia – this is according to a research by Thomas Bach
  • Enhances a child’s working memory – different parts of the brain are activated when speaking multiple languages
  • More open-minded and sensitive to others – mostly due to exposure to other cultures
  • Increased problem-solving ability and enhanced mental linguistic awareness – the child will develop more awareness about language as a system
  • Increased cognitive flexibility – improved reasoning skills, verbal abilities and being able to think outside the square
  • Career opportunities later in life

How to assess language difficulties for children with another language at home

A really important point to remember is that if there is an issue with language development, it’s going to affect all languages that the child is learning, not just the home or the community language.

When people see us speech pathologists for an assessment, one of the things we do is we collect a very detailed case history of what’s happening with the child’s communication in the home and school environment.  

Another thing that we do consider is looking at a language difference versus a language difficulty.  An example of a language difference, for children speaking English and Chinese, we notice that vowels sounds are affected and also the last sound of a word is often not pronounced.  In these cases, we consider this not as a language difficulty but a language difference.

Practical tips for educators

  • Consider the language differences
  • Observe a child’s foundation skills like play, social and interaction skills are developing appropriately
  • Check that a child is understanding what’s going on and is following routine
  • Educators should provide a good model of English
  • Use lots of demonstrations, modelling and role-playing
  • Use very simple sentence structures
  • Be aware of a child’s silent period – continue talking to them and get them to participate more
  • Encourage parents to support strong development of the home language and culture

Resources:

Watch out for Episode 7, where we will be talking about food and how it affects your child’s learning.

Episode 04 – Foundations for Reading & Spelling Part 2

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Last episode we talked about the foundations for learning to read and spell.

In particular, we talked about practical strategies, speech and language milestones for 3-5 year old, what to do if you are concerned that your child is not reaching those milestones, and oral language skills, especially vocabulary.

You can go here to listen to Part 1 

We also touched briefly on pre-literacy skills and we will dive deep into that topic today.  Here’s what to expect in today’s show:

  • Fun ways to introduce your child to more building blocks for reading and spelling
  • Oral language, how it is linked to literacy
  • 5 ways to build phonological awareness
  • Comment on apps for building foundations
  • Listen and attention skills
  • Other considerations

How oral language is linked to literacy

In the preschool period and early schooling, the real focus is for children to receive life experiences that are gonna enrich their vocabulary.

So it’s really about having fun and incorporating things in your everyday, and it’s not about sitting at a tabletop and forcing your child to learn to read or spell.

Because those life experiences will build their vocabulary and their view of how things operate in the real world.

Think about this: your child starts out by learning to read.  And as they grow older, they are reading to learn.

Be proactive

It is important to become proactive in supporting your child’s communication needs and in developing the foundation pre-literacy skills.  (Listening to the episode makes you a proactive parent or carer of the child.)

How to handle grammatical errors with modelling or recasting

For example:

Child: “I go to the shops today!” (instead of went to the shops today)

Parent or Carer: “Oh you went to the shops today!  You went to the shops with dad, didn’t you?  You went to buy some apples and oranges?”

(So what you are doing there is you’re modelling back to them the way the word “went” is used and how it functions in a sentence and also the different ways the word can be used, recasting by saying it 3 or 4 times.)

Phonological awareness

What is it?  Phonological awareness is the conscious awareness of the sounds of language and that ability to reflect on the sounds in words.

For example, preschool children start to notice the following:

  • Words that rhyme: mum and drum
  • Words that sound odd
  • Words with the same sound beginning
  • Engaging a lot in sound play – making their own words and rhymes  

Meanwhile, what are some of the sub-skills included in phonological awareness?  This includes:

  • Counting syllables, being aware of syllables in words
  • Blending sounds in words
  • Segmenting sounds
  • Being able to know if words rhyme or not
  • Being able to identify the first or last sound in a word
  • Knowing that letters make different sounds

5 ways to build phonological awareness

Here are the 5 ways to build phonological awareness:

  1. Syllable counting – learning how to break up words into smaller parts makes it easier for children to spell long words. For example: Break the word “caterpillar” into “cat-er-pil-lar”.  Another tip: To make it fun, you can clap out the syllables.
  2. Rhyme time – is a great way to learn new words and get kids to think about how words can relate to each other.  It sets the foundation to learn about word families and sounds that letters can make. For example: “fight” and “night” belong to the same word family.
  3. Hearing the first sound in a word – You can start with family names from photos. For    “Here’s Sally. What’s the first sound that we hear when we say Sally?” Another tip: You can use catalogues from supermarkets and let your child identify the first sound of products.
  4. Sounding out words – It’s not about the spelling of words, it’s about the sound.  Focus on words with a structure of 2 to 3 sounds like “bin”, “dog”, “cat”, “go”. Another tip: Use colored counters.  
  5. Alphabet – learning and reinforcing the alphabet in everyday life.  The car is a great place where you can do a lot of these activities like street signs, shop signs, billboards, etc.

Listening and attention skills

Being able to focus, pay attention and listen is so crucial to skill development, particularly for children looking to start school.  There’s got to be that important foundation because they are going to an environment so different to their home environment.

If you are concerned about your child’s attention or listening skills, you can do the activities that we already talked about or sharing books within a daily book routine will help build their concentration skills.

My comment on apps

There’s lots of great apps that help with learning to read and spell, but there’s a popular one called Reading Egg.  You should check it out.  But be very mindful of screen time, a topic that I discussed in the last episode.

Important considerations

Make sure everything is in check.  A year before going to school, be sure to have your child checked for the following:

    • vision checked, particularly by a behavioural optometrist.
    • ears and hearing checked
    • fine and gross motor skills

Now, If you are worried about the following, then you can have them checked by a specialist:

    • attention listening skills by an occupational therapist
    • Anxiety and behavioural aspects by a psychologist
    • Any aspect of communication by a speech pathologist

Now that you have super practical ways of how to prepare your child to read and spell after listening to our 2-part series on the foundations of reading and spelling.  

In the next episode, we will chat about the bilingual child.

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and subscribe to the Chatabout Children podcast.

Links and Resources:

 

Episode 03 – Foundations for Reading & Spelling Part 1

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In this episode of Chatabout Children Podcast, we look at the foundations of learning to read and spell with a real focus on preschoolers – children who are from 3 to 5 years of age.  This is part 1 of this comprehensive topic, so I hope you stay tuned.

Speech and Language Milestones

Learning to speak and communicate is a crucial part of a child’s development because it will help them progress in their early school years in terms of mastering those rules of language.

Even though development will vary for each child, it is important to have a rough guide (or milestones) as to what typical development is and you can ascertain if your child might need a bit more help.

Milestones for 3-5 year olds:

  • 3 years of age
    • Children at 3 years of age understand more complex directions (2-part instructions), WH Questions (What, Where and Who, “Different” concepts, and they can sort items into groups when asked.
    • In terms of expressive language, they are able to say 4-5 words in a sentence and they start to have a conversation with you.
    • When it comes to play skills, this is the age when they start playing beside other children and start role playing games.
  • 4 years of age
    • Children at 4 years of age children understand most questions about their daily routine, more WH questions (and answer those related to a story they just heard), and they are showing an awareness that words may start or finish with the same sounds.
    • In terms of their speaking, sentences are longer now, making use of connecting words (and, but, because), they are able to describe or recount something that they had just done, asking a lot of questions, and you’ll also notice lots of concepts developing.
    • As to play skills, they are now playing in small groups, they are continuing their pretend play and they are starting to play games with simple rules.
  • 5 years of age
    • Children at 5 years of age understand longer instructions (3-part instructions), starting to understand “before and after instructions” and they understand instructions without having to stop and listen.
    • They start speaking well-formed sentences understood by most people, turn-taking in a longer conversation, and tell simple stories with a beginning, middle and end.
    • Play continues to be quite imaginative, they start to negotiate, you’ll find that they include other things — things they haven’t experienced like space.

Speech sounds

  • At 4 years of age, a child can say most of the consonant and vowels sounds correctly, and between 4 and 5 some of their pre-literacy skills start to be a little bit reinforced — rhyming words and syllables (we will discussed this more in part 2).
  • At age 5, they may still have a bit of trouble with the “r” sound, replacing it with “w” like “wabbit” instead of “rabbi”. Also, they confuse the “th” sound with an “f” sound like “fank you” instead of “thank you”.  Another common one is a lisp, where the “s” goes to a “th” sound like “it’s thunny outside” instead of “it’s sunny outside”.

A child speaking another language at home (aside from English)

  • If you speak a foreign language at home, you can still use the milestones I mentioned earlier as a guide and apply to the dominant language spoken at home.  But if you are still not convinced, it is best to consult with a speech pathologist about this.

What to do if you are concerned after learning the milestones?

  • If you are concerned that your child has not reached the milestones we discussed earlier at her age level, then have a chat with your medical professional or family doctor, get the child’s hearing checked or contact your local speech pathologist.

6 practical, easy-to-apply strategies on how to power up your child’s vocabulary

  • Children between 2 and 5 years of age learn at a really extraordinary pace.  They understand and remember words that they may have heard once or twice (warning: be careful with your own language).  So a strong vocabulary helps a child to create a message and information that they want to express successfully.

Here’s how you can encourage the growth of your child’s vocabulary in 6 easy ways:

  1. Interactive book-sharing – Make book-reading engaging and a little bit more fun, not just one-way.  Go to your local library for variety and to save on costs.
  2. Speak to your child using a variety of words – Be mindful of your own vocabulary.  Rather than using just one word to describe something, add other words that give the same meaning (e.g. for “big” use also “enormous”, “huge”, “gigantic”, etc.)
  3. Be specific and descriptive – The more words your child hears daily, the more they will likely absorb them and use them.  For “teddy bear” say “teddy bear with the blue pants and striped shirt” instead, for example.
  4. Use everyday life opportunities to reinforce words and alphabet – Those routines that happen every day are perfect for you to talk to your child about what’s happening at that time.  For example at bath time say: “Pouring water in the big blue cup. Pouring, pouring, pouring.”
  5. Make label cards for items around the house – For example, in a bedroom, label simple words like a “bed” or a “rug” and also talk about the letters and the sounds they make in those words like “b for bed”.
  6. Look at sorting common household items – This will help your child organize information in their brain and gives them a chance to see what they’re hearing.  For example sorting socks, shoes, or pencils by color or size.

Screen time habits

Screen time is so easily accessible these days and it is said to contribute to a language delay and social skills difficulties especially if the screentime is so excessive that it takes away from human interaction time.

One of the parenting websites here in Australia recommends that children under 2 years of age should have to steer clear of the screen altogether, which I did for my own children.  For Children 2-5 years of age, the recommendation is no more than an hour a day and for 5-18 year olds, it should be no more than 2 hours a day.

In essence, just exercise some common sense and moderation when it comes to screen time and it should not replace human interaction.

 

You’ve now had an understanding of the milestones for speech sound, language and play skills.  For any other concerns, please seek the advice of a medical professional.

In the next episode of The Chatabout Children podcast, we talk about part 2 of the foundations to read and spell, in particular, we’ll talk about pre-literacy skills.  

Links and Resources:

  • Subscribe now <link here> so that you don’t miss that episode and if you are enjoying our show, please leave a review in iTunes.  See you next time!

Episode 02 – Boosting Your Child’s First Words

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In this episode of the Chatabout Children podcast, we’ll talk all about first words where I answer the top question I often get from parents and educators as a speech pathologist.

In particular, we’ll discuss the following in the podcast:

Communication milestones from birth to 2 years of age

It is vital to make communication the heart of connection with your child.  Here are the milestones that will serve as your guide:

  • Birth: communication starts once your baby becomes aware of their environmental sounds.
  • 6 months: your baby responds to voice tone changes.
  • 6-9 months: your baby starts understanding his or her own name, imitation of greetings like waving hello and goodbye, eye contact when you say “Where’s mum?”
  • 1 year: your child starts recognizing familiar objects like a ball or nose and responding to simple requests like “Give the ball to mum.”
  • 18 months:  your child’s understanding increases – short phrases, follow simple instructions like “Throw the ball” or points to familiar objects too like ”Point to ball.”
  • 2 years: your child follows longer instructions like “Get me the ball and the shoe.”

 In terms of expressive language, or learning how to speak a language, here are the milestones:

  • Birth: your newborn makes sounds expressing their pleasure or pain through crying
  • 3 months: your baby makes lots of coos and sounds are often repeated
  • 4-6 months: your baby’s sound play increases like babbling of p, b and m
  • 12 months: your child’s babbling changes and becomes longer, often 2 parts like “Mama” and “Dada” with intonation sounding like an adult. First words often arrive here. She also starts recognizing people and objects, having more eye contact and continues to babble and copy different sounds and noises.
  • 18 months: your child speaks 6 to 20 single words, copies lots of words and noises, and can name different body parts
  • 2 years:  your child can answer simple “What” and “Where” questions, says more than 50 single words and puts two words together like “Bye Teddy.”  An uprise in the voice when asking questions like “Mummy gone?” is also noticed. He/she also speaks most vowel sounds and consonants like m, n, p, b, h, k, g, t, d, w, h.

What to expect from children who speak a foreign language outside of English

If you have another language at home besides English, for example, the dominant language is Spanish, then expect the communication milestones to still apply, but in Spanish.

What if your child is not reaching those milestones?

Don’t panic. The first thing is awareness of the milestones and the expectations.  Second, consult a medical professional. Make sure to have their ears checked.

3 early signs that first words are soon to erupt

  1. Attention – eye gaze, facial expression, sounds and noises made, gestures and actions are things to look out for.
  2. Turn-taking – if your child is responding to simple turn-taking games like peek-a-boo.
  3. Imitation – when a child copies your actions like during nursery rhymes, shaking your head, etc.

6 key strategies to boost those first words

  1. Modelling – use simple terms and shorter sentences. Talk about what’s happening and what you’re doing like “open door” or “close door.”  That will help your child piece things together.
  2. Build anticipation and wait – lovely to do with nursery rhymes like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  You can sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little and then pause – this builds up anticipation.
  3. Encouraging choice – you’re providing opportunities for choices and giving your child control like “You want a banana or an apple?”
  4. Interactive book-sharing – books are amazing at maximizing language development.  Start a daily book routine.
  5. Question usage – tune in to what kind of questions you ask your child.  Ask open questions like “What happened at ____”, “What are we going to do now?”. Or consider questions with two options.
  6. Expansion – building on new words your child has developed by adding a word or 2.  If they say “car”, you say “big green car.” But take note that you are not asking them to repeat what you said.  They will eventually develop that.

Answers to common questions

“Are boys slower than girls?”

Research shows that boys tend to erupt words a bit slower than girls by about 3 months.

An associate once told me that he knew someone as a child who didn’t speak until he was 3. And he’s absolutely fine now. Why wouldn’t we wait until a child is 3?

I ask, what’s happening in the child’s world until the age of 3? Is it full of frustration?  Why not make it a happier environment for everyone. Trust your gut instinct. If as a parent you choose to wait, put a deadline up, so you know when you should act on seeking professional advice.

Links and Resources:

Episode 01 – Welcome to Chatabout Children

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Welcome to the inaugural episode of Chatabout Children Podcast with Sonia Bestulic – where we chat about all things children while supporting and empowering you to also grow with the children in your life.

First things first, here’s the reason why we started the Chatabout Children Podcast.

The Chatabout Children podcast is an extension of www.chataboutchildren.com, a blog that I started years ago to share to my audience (parents, grandparents, carers and people who work with children) some of the topics that I regularly get asked to speak about at various events and conferences.  

With the podcast, I plan to use the platform to share my content in audio format, especially now that people are busier than ever and a podcast is another exciting medium to reach those busy parents and carers.

The purpose of Chatabout Children is to create a positive and a collaborative community without the need for the unnecessary judgement that already occurs in society; the intention is to build each other up and provide a wealth of information about raising children, from newborns to pre-teens.

Who is Sonia Bestulic?

I am a children’s author, businesswoman, and speech pathologist who has worked with so many children through the years.  I’m a mother of 3 young kids, who were all born within a period of 2 ½ years (no twins in there).

My professional and personal experience working with children and families culminates in my newest endeavour, The Chatabout Children Podcast.

Key Takeaways

In this episode you’ll learn:

  • My deep insight into the rewards and challenges of raising young children, having worked with so many families and children through the years
  • One of my greatest passions has been to teach, to educate and to spark the transformation that comes when you empower others.
  • The podcast is looking to not just educate but enlighten you with essential tips, tricks, and strategies that you might find valuable in your day-to-day.
  • Apart from the education, the podcast is also about the celebration of children, and those that care for them – parents, grandparents, carers, people that work with children or people training to work with children.
  • The key message is to encourage you to learn and to laugh with the ones you love — to make you feel empowered, inspired, supported and feel a sense of belonging to a community that understands you.
  • My mantra is family first, but do remember you are part of that family too.
  • Professionals that work with children have a very emotional role, and they need to make sure to look after themselves too.
  • Having borne three children so close together was a steep learning curve for me.
  • My five main pillars of connection: with myself, my husband, children, extended family and the community.
  • Expect fortnightly episodes of Chatabout Children of 20-30 minutes per episode featuring experts in the world of children’s health and education, everyday parents and carers, children plus solo shows with your truly.

 

Quote

“My line of work as a speech pathologist has been one of service and care.”

“I just can’t wait to have this podcast and the information on here to provide you with some of that change and transformation.”

“I believe that knowledge is power, but only when powered by action.”

“My long-held belief is that communication is at the heart of connection.”

Links and Resources

 

6 Steps To Launch Your Child’s First Words And Beyond!

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