Bilingual Books for Children
Over the last while, I have been exploring the world of Bilingual books for Children and how they work and it is fascinating, if only as an english speaking family with our 2 youngest doing french, I wanted to find a way that we could all enjoy the world of learning French as a language.
Bilingual books allow children to work simultaneously in two languages to decode unfamiliar text, negotiate meaning and explore the differences between their languages
A Bilingual Book is defined as a book that balances the use of two languages, and a dual language book promotes linguistic and cultural competency.
Our new shop Lingowl Language Resources Shop sells a whole range after doing the research of the benefits of them.
Firstly you can have wonderful story books that are in both languages on the same page, this way your child hears the same story in two languages, it allows the child to learn the words in both languages in a very easy way, as well as parents in our case who don’t speak the language it can help us learn.
Bilingual books for Children from 5 years – 7 years is a little difficult because it is recommended that you learn to read in one language first and then the other language seperately, however in the, they are using simple works and also the I can read range, offers assistance for parents. We carry the I can read range which are bilingual books that have controlled bilingual texts with lots of useful repetition ensure the improvement of your childs language skills
Bilingual books for Children from 8 years – 11 years is all about getting them reading and this is where bilingual books proof lots of fun in their development, at this stage children tend to prefer one language over another whether they are bilingual or not. These books allow the children to read in their preference language while providing the curiousity of reading the lesser language also and cheating in a way if they do not know the words. Again another fun method for them, pages geared towards 8 years – 11 year and translated on the same page. The range we carry Let’s Read allows children to enjoy exploring their ‘new’ language with original, exciting and varied stories. The parallel text, pictures and speech bubbles provide a child-friendly bridge to reading – and speaking – in another language. A quiz page at the end helps check understanding. These are available in English & French and English & Spanish.
For over 11 years the best books are dual language bilingual books, this way one chapter is in english and the other in another language, the child has to read each chapter to get the story and follow it through. As an adult I have to say I really enjoy reading these books if anything as a way to keep me interested which to be honest is good for active tweens and teenagers who tend to get sidetracked easily.
Let me know your thoughts and comments and while our Lingowl Shop covers over 20 languages for the younger child, we specialise in bilingual and dual language books for all ages in English & French.
Here is the Link for our Shop enjoy, browse and let me know what you think
