Literacy
There is a common anxiety amongst all parents, anywhere in the world, that their children’s native literacy will be suffering if you are living abroad. In our case, English is our first language but our children are learning Spanish at school. Well, let me assure you, as long as your child doesn’t suffer from any reading difficulties generally, the transition from Spanish to English and back again is easy.
How did we discover this? Well, our family has been in a prolonged state of transition over the past two and a half years, getting to be in our home where we are now, happily ensconced. Now 7, the children have worked hard at school and I would say that their vocabulary and general language skills are pretty even in both Spanish and English. And their reading and writing in Spanish is very good too. Whereas Daddy, in whatever situation, can only express himself in building terms, which can be confusing at the dentist. Anyway, settling in to their new bedrooms the other day, we unpacked a couple of boxes of their books which hadn’t seen the light of day since the children were four and a half. They fell upon them with great enthusiasm and joy at remembering the books, their titles and most importantly the illustrations. And lo and behold they just started reading, in English. We needed minor adjustments in order to aspirate H’s and TH’s, correction of G’s and J’s but beyond that they found it easy. Albeit in a Spanish accent.
So if you are in a similar situation and have those anxieties, don’t worry. Be attentive, but don’t worry about it. Now I particularily enjoy having Jeffery Fisher’s book ‘The Hair Scare’ (illustrated above) read to me in bed in the morning with my cup of coffee.