{"id":1352,"date":"2009-11-09T22:06:30","date_gmt":"2009-11-09T13:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-11-09\/1352"},"modified":"2009-11-09T22:06:30","modified_gmt":"2009-11-09T13:06:30","slug":"anthony-is-starting-to-read-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-11-09\/1352","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Is Starting To Read English"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 48 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>80 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 2000 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nAnthony Reading a Story<\/span><\/span>\nin English\n<\/div>\n\n

When Anthony started first grade<\/a> last April, he couldn't read or write\nmuch Japanese, but since then he uses it every day in school, so now is\nquite proficient at both reading and writing. In fact, part of his homework\nis that he has to write a diary<\/span> entry every day<\/b>, in Japanese, such\nas this one from last week:<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\n“Pencil”<\/span>\nAnthony's diary for Nov 4, 2009<\/div>\n\n

It's titled Pencil<\/b>, and reads: “<\/b>The pencil I used<\/span> from the first semester until now has become small. It can't be used anymore. “It's time to part ways”, I said.<\/span> My little<\/span> pencil buddy certainly liked me, I think.<\/span><\/i>”<\/b><\/p>\n\n

I've given other diary examples before, such as these<\/a>\nfrom September. It's a fantastic<\/span> idea that not only offers writing\npractice, but promotes independent thought and experience on how to\nformulate and express those thoughts in writing (a skill<\/span> that many college\nkids in America don't have; back when I was<\/span> in college and being a computer<\/span>\ngeek with access to a printer<\/span> at a time<\/span> when it was rare, I used to<\/span> type my\nfriends' reports for them, and without exception their writing was\nhorrid).<\/p>\n\n

As I wrote four years ago in “How to Raise a\nBilingual<\/span> Child<\/a>”, I've taken a very<\/span> soft approach with Anthony's\nEnglish, knowing that it's the subordinate language of his environment and\nthat he could get by perfectly well even if he snubbed his nose at learning\nit. The soft approach<\/span> and yearly visits to The States have turned out very\nwell, and he's as fluent in English speech and comprehension as any of his\npeers in America.<\/p>\n\n

Reading and writing are a different matter. I've been very gingerly\npushing the idea of him learning to read English more, but he's not been\nreceptive to it at all. This, combined with an innate laziness on my part\nand a crushing<\/span> amount of other stuff on my plate, and it's something I've\nlet slip just a bit<\/span> too long.<\/p>\n\n

So it turns out today that 14 of 30 kids in his class stayed home with\nthe swine flu, so the school canceled his class for the rest of the week\nand he came home early. I decided<\/span> to use the opportunity to try English\nreading again, and when he said he wanted to play a computer<\/span> game, I suggested<\/span> that he could play as long as he wanted<\/i>..... but that we'd\nsit with the English stuff for an equal amount of time once he was done.<\/p>\n\n

An hour 11 minutes later he decided he was done with the game, so I\npulled<\/span> out a Hooked\non Phonics<\/a> set I had<\/span> bought years ago, targeted at teaching a\nkindergartener<\/span> to read. The first<\/span> few pages are just to make sure the kid\ncan recognize all the letters and the sounds they make, and he struggled\neven with that. It's something<\/span> Anthony's two oldest cousins could already\ndo at age three, but, then again, they had only one language to deal with.<\/p>\n\n

After a half hour he was getting frustrated (and who blames him... it's\nnot fun), so we paused for a snack,<\/span> and then tried again, and it was much\neasier. Then we could finally move to the real stuff, where he could learn\nreal words (at, cat, hat, mat, bat, fat, etc.). After two pages of that,\nsuddenly, there was a story<\/b>... a two page<\/i> story, and he\ncould read the whole thing by himself.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 34 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>80 sec, f<\/span>\/4, ISO 2200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nSo Thrilling<\/span>\nthat I had to grab my camera\n<\/div>\n\n

He was very proud, and also excited at the prospect that he could read. He wanted<\/span> to read it again, and did so several times...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>80 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 1250 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

He also read the story to Mommy, which is when I took<\/span> the lead picture of this post.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 48 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>80 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 2000 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nPride!<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

After dinner, while I was writing up my previous post about our trip to\nDisneyland<\/a> and starting work on this post, he was writing his diary\nentry for the day....<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\n“English”<\/span>\nAnthony's diary for today<\/div>\n\n

It reads: “<\/b>Today while studying\nEnglish, for the first time I could<\/span> suddenly read a bit.<\/span> From now I'll read\nthe book.<\/i> (That is, he'll now transcribe the story, which he then did\n– with a minor<\/span> Japanese misspelling – in its entirety).<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Anthony started first grade last April, he couldn't read or write much Japanese, but since then he uses it every day in school, so now is quite proficient at both reading and writing. In fact, part of his homework is that he has to write a diary entry every day<\/b>, in Japanese, such as this one from last week:<\/p>

It's titled Pencil<\/b>, and reads: \"<\/b>The pencil I used from the first semester until now has become small. It can't be used anymore. \"It's time to part ways\", I said. My little pencil buddy certainly liked me, I think.\"<\/b><\/p>

I've [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}