Can children learn to read two languages concurrently?

[Anonymous]

My child reads English at about a third grade level. I would like to introduce reading in the second language. Because it is a European language, I am wondering if it will confuse the child to learn the same letters with different phonetic expressions. Has anyone taught their child to read their native language in early elementary?

[Anonymous]

Yes. In our experience, once the “reading” clicked, it was easy to learn to read the second language even if it has different alphabet / pronunciation. My kids learned to read in both languages almost concurrently.

[Anonymous]

It should not be an issue. my child is 6 and learning English in school and a second language at a weekend language school. If anything, they compliment each other and he’s learning at a faster pace.

[Anonymous]

Mine did. However it did produce some issues with writing, not reading. I suppose it depends on the language. Both of my kids read/write/speak English and German. They are now college/high school.

Both struggle (still) with English spelling--German is much more straightforward in that way, although the language is grammatically more complex.

[Anonymous]

Yes. No issues here.

[Anonymous]

Yes, absolutely. If two or more languages are spoken in the home, they usually tend to talk a little later though.

[Anonymous]

Probably not a huge problem, but I doubt your child will really learn the second language unless you or your family speak it at home, or the kid is in an immersion program at school.

[Anonymous]

We live in Ontario. We are English speaking but our kids attend a French language school. They learned to read in French and English simultaneously with no problems at all. It's so interesting, when our brains are in "French mode," we speak, read and write in French with absolutely no confusion. Same with English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Probably not a huge problem, but I doubt your child will really learn the second language unless you or your family speak it at home, or the kid is in an immersion program at school.

The reading and writing is never the problem. Those are easy compared to understanding and speaking fluently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It should not be an issue. my child is 6 and learning English in school and a second language at a weekend language school. If anything, they compliment each other and he’s learning at a faster pace.

A little hard to judge at six--and weekend language schools don't exactly lead to any sort of fluency.

[Anonymous]

Yes, my 6 year old is reading and writing in English, French and Russian, and she first started learning to read at 5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine did. However it did produce some issues with writing, not reading. I suppose it depends on the language. Both of my kids read/write/speak English and German. They are now college/high school.

Both struggle (still) with English spelling--German is much more straightforward in that way, although the language is grammatically more complex.

Thank you for responding! Our second language is German and while the child speaks it, I wondered if introducing “ch” and “sch” as in ach nein and Schule would confuse the phonetic principles the child learned in “church” and “sheep” if that makes sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably not a huge problem, but I doubt your child will really learn the second language unless you or your family speak it at home, or the kid is in an immersion program at school.

The reading and writing is never the problem. Those are easy compared to understanding and speaking fluently.

OP here, we speak it at home.

[Anonymous]

If a child was truly starting from zero, I would not try to teach reading in two languages that share characters concurrently. If the child already knows how to read one language, like yours, I don't see a problem with introducing the other. Or, if the two languages have unmistakably different alphabets, then I think you could teach from zero concurrently.

Anecdotally, I learned how to read in Russian at age 4, and had no problem learning to read English at age 5-6, even though the two alphabets share some overlapping characters, some of which make different sounds. But I had a firm grasp on the Russian before I started learning English.

My children had the other scenario, learning different alphabets concurrently, English and Hebrew, and then learning to read both at the same time. That worked fine too.

I wouldn't try to teach a child the Russian and English alphabets at the same time though. I'd sequence it.

[Anonymous]

Yes, and not a big deal.

My kids did. Alphabet was pretty similar. Same letters generally.

Also, if your dc is ALREADY reading in english at a 3rd grade level then they wouldn't be learning to read at the same time. They are already reading well in one language. So your question is not really about your child you mentioned.