Reading Archives - Page 3 of 8

Guest Post: How to Make the Most of Reading Aloud to Your Kids in Two or More Languages

February 16, 2017

In our home, we have a rule: “One more book, bought or borrowed, is always okay.” Things like clothes and candy, they have their limits, but when it comes to books, we can never have too many. Reading aloud to children is extremely important for their language development, and this is even more true when the child is growing up in a bilingual family and needs ample input in the minority language. In daily conversation, we tend to use the

How I Got My Bilingual Daughter to Eagerly Do Her Homework in the Minority Language (Contest Update)

February 1, 2017

This post is my promised update on the contest I held last month, and I’ll now reveal the tactic I used to address my 12-year-old daughter’s reluctance to using our minority language dictionary when doing her daily homework. (The contest yielded two winning guesses, from Lauren in the U.S. and Heidi in Germany, who will each receive a surprise package of little prizes from Hiroshima, Japan.) In case you missed my post about the contest, here again is the background

Guest Post: A Writer’s Perspective on the Value of Bilingual Books for Children, Families, and Schools

September 13, 2016

Infancy and early childhood are critical periods for language development. During these periods, all children have their highest potential to learn multiple languages without special effort. When families have speakers of different languages, they have the opportunity to easily gift their children with a highly valued and useful competency. For these families and their children, bilingual books are very helpful tools to succeed in this effort. Benefits for families Reading to children from early infancy provides permanent benefits, both for

The Larger Arc of Captive Reading—and Our Lives As Human Beings

July 6, 2016

For nearly a decade, I’ve pursued a strategy I call “captive reading” and this tactic has made a tremendous contribution to my children’s language and literacy development. At this point, as my children are getting a bit older (they’re now 12 and 9) and their ability in the minority language has reached a fairly advanced level, I’ve now taken what is probably the final step in my captive reading efforts, one I’ll try to sustain through the rest of their

Recommended Resources: Lovely Picture Book That Celebrates Being Bilingual

November 3, 2015

As parents of bilingual kids, one of our most important aims is nurturing a positive attitude toward the minority language. When a child feels that this language has value, that it benefits his or her life, our efforts to promote its growth can be far more effective. The reverse, I’m afraid, is also true, and if the child doesn’t feel much value in learning or using this language, the road ahead will be more difficult and less productive. It’s like

18 Ways to Get Bilingual Kids Using the Minority Language More in Your Car

October 14, 2015

In my last post, I shared a trip that we took to an old silver mining town in Japan, offering a number of photos and an important message about raising bilingual kids. (See Make History. Raise a Bilingual Child.) As we were driving along, and playing little games in our minority language, it occurred to me that this might make a useful post: What activities can parents pursue in the car to promote use of the target language and stretch

The “Home Run Book”: A Key Idea for Promoting a Child’s Language Development

September 2, 2015

One of the recurrent themes of this blog has been my ongoing quest to inspire my bilingual daughter, now 11, to read more frequently in English, her minority language. Although it’s true that her free time is limited, due to long days at our local Japanese elementary school and heavy loads of homework, the deeper challenge is that she simply isn’t, by nature, as hungry a bookworm as her 8-year-old brother. Still, because I adamantly believe that children who read

22 Funny Tongue Twisters for Kids (And Why Tongue Twisters Are Terrific for Language Development)

August 5, 2015

Hardly a week goes by that I don’t challenge my kids to repeat a tongue twister that emerges naturally from our interactions. The truth is, because tongue twisters are such a fun and effective form of engagement in the target language, my ears are continuously pricked for this opportunity. Two examples, one older and one more recent… 1. When my son entered first grade, he chose a black backpack for school. Of course, it was hard to overlook the wonderful

New Research Shows Reading Aloud Promotes Brain Activity and Language Development

June 3, 2015

The first scientific study of its kind has yielded findings which indicate that reading aloud to children has a measurable impact on brain activity and language development. In a study of preschoolers which used fMRI whole-brain imaging to explore the benefits of parents reading to young children, Dr. John Hutton and his colleagues at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center found significant differences in brain activity between children who are read to regularly in the home and those that receive

VIDEO: Adam Beck Goes Bonkers in Interview, Reveals “Crazy Secret” for Bilingual Success

May 5, 2015

I’ve written a lot of words at this blog about raising bilingual children. But I think this short video of me being interviewed by my kids will demonstrate, better than words ever could, the important sense of playfulness that I’ve described in Be Very Serious. Be Very Playful. The Bilingual Journey Demands Both. and other posts. I hesitate to call this a “method” because it’s simply my nature when I’m around kids. At the same time, I’m quite conscious of

50 Activities with Animals to Engage Your Bilingual Kids in the Minority Language

March 18, 2015

I suppose you’ve noticed: Animals often appear in my posts, and I’m not just talking about my two monkeys. In fact, in my last post, Adam’s Fables for Raising Bilingual Kids, I used animals to create little analogies about issues involving bilingualism and children. I even made an earlier post, called Bilingual Kids and the Animal Kingdom, where I shared my life-long love of animals and offered a list of links to many of the posts where animals make an

FREE WEBINAR: How to Get Your Bilingual Child Eagerly Shouting Out the Minority Language (Literally!)

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