We have been living in Italy for over 2 years. My oldest son (now 8 years old) could read well in English before we arrived, and easily made the transition to the Italian first grade. He is fluent in Italian and does well in school, though he prefers to read in English for pleasure. My second son is 6 and this year started first grade at the local Italian school. He is learning to read in Italian with no trouble, but is having trouble reading in English at home. I am concerned that he will never learn to read English as well as Italian and might always have a problem reading English if he does not practice more. We plan to move back to the US in a few years and I don't want him to struggle when we return. Any experience with this?

The internet is a good source of English homeschool material, it might not hurt to get some grade appropriate exercise books, just to keep his hand in.
I've noticed that after 5 yrs here, my spelling is getting terrible and I don't know why, I read in English all the time.
Old story: if you don't use it, you lose it!

Elena, there is an excellent series of books titled "What Your Third (or whatever grade)Grader Needs to Know" edited by E.D. Hirsch,Jr. The books provide the fundamentals of a education in areas of reading, math, history (world and US),geograpy, art, literature, science, and more. They are really outstanding and would be teaching your boys some basic things about the US that may be helpful when they return. The series was recommended by my child's school when I asked for ideas as to what to take with us next year so that he will be ready for 4th grade when we return. I bought it at Barnes and Nobel but I am sure you could get it from the net. I was an educator in my past life and am very impressed with the third grade book.

Also, if you have anyone with access to Costco, they right now have some good series at all grades levels for reading and math.

My sons, now 14 and 16, have lived in Italy all their lives and are fluent in English. When they were younger I would read to them in English and always provided books for young readers as they grew up. I still have many of these books and would gladly donate them to any young readers out there. You can contact me via email which is in my profile.

quote:

I am concerned that he will never learn to read English as well as Italian and might always have a problem reading English if he does not practice more.

Not much of an advice, but calm down. "Never" is a very drastic word when you're talking about a 6-year-old. His parents are American, he'll be moving back to the US and live there again. Sure he might have some issues in the very beginning when you move back but trust me, it's nothing you have to worry about.

I've thought about the same issue...my son is doing first grade in our local Italian school. I tried to homeschool reading in English but found it was too confusing with all he was learning in Italian to do them at the same time. To calm myself down, I repeat: Remember, reading is a transferable skill. As long as your child has attained literacy in one language (Italian) he will be able to transfer this skill to English without too much trouble, especially because he speaks it, they use the same alphabet and the consonant sounds are similar enough. In the beginning, he will probably try and sound out all the English words phonetically until he realizes it makes no sense, then he'll use the context to help. Of course, spelling is another matter and when you first return your children may need some extra work with writing. Continue to read aloud to them in English. Perhaps you'll want to teach them the "300 most common words" as sight words(Dolch or some such list are easy enough to find on the internet and there are workbooks that help them practice these words in a context)as they are both common and non-phonetic in many cases ("of" for example). Immigrant children often come to America at an older age and often do well...without the strong background in spoken English that your children already have. I second the notion of looking at the "What every __ grader should know" books as they probably cover not only the reading and spelling, but the history that they are missing. And I second Annika's suggestion not to worry too much. And remember all they've gained!

My wife educated in Italy, is a much better speller in English than I am, and her study of English was fairly limited. So I wonder why, maybe it's the Italian or perhaps her study of Latin and Greek in the classical high school.

We have the same issues with our two 4 and 6. The 6 year old went to kindergarten in California and is now in an Italian first grade. We have been wondering how much effort we should make towards the English part of their education. I would agree that reading must be a tranferable skill and based upon my wife I don't think spelling will be too much of an issue either. We read to them every night in both languages depending on the book they chose.

All of the above is right on and helpful. With an 8 year old who "HATES" to read it's a real challenge for us too. For fun and very basic excercises in English reading I have the McGraw Hill Little Critter spelling workbooks. In addition, interestingly enough he can read all the properties and chance/community chest cards on monopoly just by sounding them out and we've really done very little to make him read in English because he's so resistant and I figure, it'll come. So, fun stuff, stuff he or she finds interesting and lots of positve reinforcement. When you go back to the states your child will have had enormous geographical and cultural exposure, that to me seems like a real advantage and education in itself, and reading will come.

Cordiali saluti,

Kerry
Grifoglia
www.apartmentvacationsitaly.com
www.theothertuscany.com
www.tuscanywalking.com

I know that I have written this before, and it's really not that I want to show everybody how good I am (because that's not the case), BUT:
Once again, stop worrying.
Even if they're not fully proficient in both English and Italian at age 7 or 8 or 12 for that matter, there's no need to worry.
I didn't start learning English AT ALL until the age of 10, and I have always been living here in Sweden with Swedish parents and everything, but today I can read English just as easily as I read Swedish.
If I buy a book in English or Swedish really doesn't matter to me.
It is perfectly possible to be fluent in more than one language. You don't have to choose, and you don't have to accomplish everything at such a young age. It is never too late.

Your children already have a great advantage in the fact that they are living in one country while their parents come from another one and speak another language. They WILL be bilingual, but understand that in the learning phase they will use one language more than the other, then when they are confident enough with the new language they will switch back and use both. It's like there isn't room in the brain for two languages at the same time in the learning phase.

I don't know if I get my point through - I am still much better at reading comprehension than at expressing myself but trust me, you don't have to worry. Your children will be just fine.

Annika, by the way you write very well in English. And I love your advice about not worrying too much about it. Not sure I agree about not enough room in the brain for two languages in the learning phase. My two little ones switch back and forth like there is an auto switch when they see me or their mom. Sometimes I wish they would speak to me more in Italian than English. We will see what happens when they are reading more.

I think everyone is right to say "don't worry" and it's true that the benefits of living abroad are going to be much greater than any difficulties your kids might have during the transitions...That said, it's natural to worry about it too.

My 8 year old came to italy this past September knowing how to read and write in English. She still reads like a mad-woman - she loves reading "chapter books" to herself at bedtime, etc. so no problems there - but she seems to have forgotten how to spell anything in english! Like Diane said, I was planning on doing some homeschooling in subjects like spelling, but it seems to just be confusing and counter-productive when she is putting so much energy into learning italian. So when she needs to learn to write better in english, then we'll address that subject. Until then, we're just letting her go with the italian flow...

Our 4, now 5, year old came to italy not knowing how to read or write in english. But she's very interested in learning it at home, since we do a lot of reading to her and she sees how much her sister like to read. When I read to her at night, I try to point out the two and three letter words when I get to them - and she is starting to read them to me. It's fun. Next year in first grade here in italy, she will be learning to read in italian, so it should be interesting to see which comes easier to her.

I just keep trying to remind myself that all the different variables will come together at different times...And in the end they'll probably be fluent speaking, reding and writing two languages! (...now the question is will I ever get there!)

At the moment our problem is that my daughters class seems to be the one that got all the bad kids. So the class is disrupted all the time and we are afraid she will fall behind. The school is trying to solve the problem, they won't kick them out short of a real disaster, but it's taking way to long. So far they are bringing in a second teacher at least part of the day, not sure if it's every day. Not sure what we can do about it. It's a Catholic school, one of the best I'm told. But we are considering taking her out.

If you have a DVD player and English-language DVDs, put the English subtitles on. Better yet, get the ones sold with "Listen Up!" magazine (if they are kid-appropriate movies - this may be tricky), which have much more accurate subtitles. This gives your child a "painless" way to link written to spoken.

(People learning English as a foreign language have used this trick for years; I was interested to see recently that it's also now being used as a way to teach basic literacy to people who don't read even in their native language.)