Learning & forgetting

Vicky is enjoying reading the primers that I have. It is sad that the school is taking such a mechanical approach, & the other kids have no benefit of the joy of "have learnt to read", the sense of achievement. Besides, a primer at school would have meant one more primer for Vicky :D My current resources are certainly running out. I have been visiting the website Homeschool Freebie of the Day since a few years, in fact I had been looking for primers online, for another child, when I stumbled upon it, & now it is certainly time to dig out those awesome vintage primers & print them out ... who says You have to be homeschooling, or American, to need these resources? You just have to be an involved parent.

In Hindi, the school is simply rushing on with the written alphabet. In fact, Vicky has forgotten not only the writing movement, but also the "look" of many of the alphabets that came (& went) in between. & oh! she has also developed some wrong writing patterns. She is writing "d" by taking her pencil from beneath & making the circle twice. "a" by making a circle first, & then "adding a tail". Likewise, she is also writing p wrong ... I am having to teach her the correct movements again. This is the result of not enough practice of the earlier learning, before moving on.
By the way, Vicky cannot write a cursive "k". & I do not insist.

She is getting better with the sight words. She is finding "the" everywhere now, for example in the English newspaper. I have always been told to "guide the child to put reading in context" ... I had to make no efforts towards it. She is also really bent upon phonics. She tries to read whatever she can. The other day, we were in the car, & she asked "Mumma, what does "The Pan" mean?", I thought that it must be the name of some restaurant, but my husband said that it was "The Panacea", a hospital, & marveled for 5 minutes at the fact that Vicky had read so much from the moving car ... :)

My mother has sent the Bengali Primers. I am starting on the Bengali consonants with Vicky.

Led by the child

It is difficult to explain the meaning of "the" to a Hindi-speaker. Thankfully, in Baanglaa, " টা " is much more frequently used than "ठो ".
The first set of sight words was the most difficult to teach. Vicky kept forgetting the look of each word, as well as the meaning, & I kept losing patience. After 3 weeks, I decided that it was time for the next set. Somehow, perhaps because "it" "is" & "in" are actually phonetic, or of only two letters,she picked them up quite fast, even though she still kept forgetting the words of the first set.
At school, after the small letters in running hand, the class started with 3-letter words. "at" words. I was quite astonished. Why not "a" sound words as a whole? "an", "ag", "at" all those words? But Vicky is quite proud of her school, & the activities at school, so I went with the flow. 
I had a few resources with me. One was a book from my own pre-school days, that I found in a used-book market in my college days.
It has this "lesson" about Mohan, & when I was in  pre-school, we had a steel tub just like that, & a red mug just like that, & my Mom too used to warm the water in the tub in the Sun in our company-quarter varandah ... I "related" with Mohan!!!Well, nostalgia was paying off. I also had a set of "Songs letters sing" from ANOTHER generation before. (Yes, we are children's book-preservers.) These provided a set of "reading material".
Luckily, I found a cluster of sentences, with primarily "at" words. About a cat & a rat, who have a nap on the mat & in a hat, respectively :D I had to interject with the words "on " & "in", as they were not yet on her "syllabus" ... but at the end of the session, she was able to tell herself " बिल्ली ठो बैठा ऊपर एक चटाई ...के " Vicky did 3 sentences that day, & the whole of the same lesson the next day. Thankfully, she found it very amusing that "The cat is fat". She was literally ROFL. Thus, Vicky is now reading for pleasure. For real.

About spoken

In ordinary, middle-class India, anyone with a good "spoken English" is treated with great regard, bordering on awe. lamentably, the country's school system is merely a "certification system", rather than an "education system". & it is exams which produce the certification. Therefore, it is the emphasis on "spoken English" which distinguishes a great school from an average school.
In Vicky's school, certain instructions are given in English, like "take out your Diary" etc, & then explained in Hindi, but this is not the case with all communication. Moreover, the teacher's aide is simply a poor woman in a menial job, she is plain non-conversant in English. On the other hand, the school expects the kids to mug up a set of  questions & answers on different topics every week, for example fruit, or water animals, etc, which is called elocution. I do not know how it is "delivered" in school, as I have not seen it. When we start practising these at home, I call it "playing quiz", & I try to explain the question, as well as the individual words that make up the question. I encourage Vicky (& Vibhu) to answer in a sentence, where they know the words of the sentence, & is repetitive.
In this context, I am thinking that I'll add the words "some" & "are" to the list of sight words, as most questions start "name some ...", & I might as well show Vicky the looks of these two words she is commonly using.
Vicky is excited about the colouring game. We modified it to make shapes around the words too ...
I have to remind Vicky every few minutes to "hold the pencil correct". She says it hurts, & I sometimes doubt if I am doing the correct thing.
On the contrary, when Nutan teaches sight words to her child, she completely emphasises on the recognition & recall only, & totally sidesteps meaning. It's okay for her, as her child is already quite conversant in English , & watches cartoons in English.

Dolch sight words

Okay, so I discovered  the "Dolch sight words". It was interesting to read it up, I am happy to know that the list was originally drawn up to facilitate kids to read kid-lit independently.
I have downloaded the flash cards from the website dolchword.net download page. I took the "Pre-primer" list, because that is the starting point, & I also guess that what is called "Nursery" in this school (3+ to 4+) would fit that description.
I spoke to my child's teacher & she told me that she will be doing "sound words" first. I somehow have a feeling that "sight words" will be needed more, will need more teaching, & also, I have trust on Vicky's teacher to be able to teach phonics. So, I have decided to teach sight words  to Vicky myself.
We started with the six words of the 1st page of the printables. The logic of the choice of words of the pre-primer list is confusing me, but right now, I am going to trust Dolche's & the website's wisdom.
It is proving difficult to teach Vicky sight words. Maybe I am expecting too much, because she learnt the alphabet from others, without any effort on my part. I think ... I think Vicky is being thick ... Ha ha! I am just repeating & revising with her, & Vibhu too. Vibhu is 2 classes senior, & knows some words, though he can learn a lot more. It is helping a bit to enthuse Vicky, but I also have to prevent it from becoming a "word-sreaming" match :D
Nutan is helping a lot. Nutan is in touch with this really good special teacher. She told me a sight word colouring game. (She has thought up this game herself, Nutan is innovative!) The game is simple, the sights words which are being practised, along with the child's own name, are written repeatedly on a page in a grid. Each word is assigned a colour, & the kid is given the crayons. You call out a word, & she colours all the repeats of that word in the page. It should work well with Vicky, as she enjoys colouring.
On a different note, since I was cribbing to Nutan about Vicky's bad grip, she suggested me mazes. Very basic level mazes, with a thick big pencil, are good exercise for a correct grasp!

An oxymoronic situation

Vicky has been raised to speak Baanglaa & Hindi, but now, to read & write, the entire emphasis is on English.
Which results in an added disadvantage while learning English - she has to simultaneously learn the meanings of words, while learning the spelling (or sight, in case of sight words), apart from the fact is English, written/printed in Roman script is not phonetic by even a far touch.
So, while I am struggling to teach her the 3 "to" "two" & "too" as separate (I did not choose to, she is a very curious child, & likes to "apply" her learning. She is getting confused upon hearing the words in context. She is already showing me "The" in all books ...), she is already recognizing  "এ", "খ", & "ন", & it only remains to me to introduce her to reading words by putting them together into "এখন" ... How I wish life was simpler, but it is not, therefore this blog, simply to document the progress of a trilingual child over all 3 languages, (& perhaps other aspects of life), I hope this blog will help me keep track of her progress, & keep myself on track to set her the right goals.
Essentially, therefore, I am teaching my child English by the old method, "translation", rather than by the modern method "immersion". This is the only way for me, as I cannot stop using Baanglaa with Vicky, there is no one else she can practise it with.

However, I am aware of the superiority of the immersion method, which means that the learner should be completely surrounded by the language s/he is learning, & the ultimate aim is to "think in the language". Therefore, I will try to find as many real-life opportunities for Vicky to listen, speak, read & write English as possible.
We have subscribed to a Magazine : Highlights Genies which is a delightful age 2-6 magazine, & sometimes makes me wish English was Vicky's first Language :)
We have joined a Library, "Look a Book".
It was far more challenging to find reading material suitable for a 3-4 year old in Indian Languages. The Indian languages have been neglected by parents, & consequently, the market for Indian Language books in 3-4 yearis next to zero.
Baanglaa has for a century been a very literarily active language, & one generation ago, when I was small, we used to get eclectic books of stories & poems & rhymes by indigenous authors & illustrators, which has totally died out.
So, Thank God for Tulika Books & Pratham Books !!!

She's my Small Wonder

I call my daughter Vicky, after VIKI of Small Wonder.
She is cross cultural. In the Indian sense. My husband is Kanpur-ite Raajpoot. I am Bhilai-ite Probashi Baangaali. He is a chain entrepreneur. I could not survive the Private Sector in India & joined a PSU. her first 2 & half years were spent in Bhilai, as my posting was there, living with my parents, in a little extended nuclear family, but in the of a whole apartment of doting দীদাs, মাসিs & দীদীs. Now she lives in our joint family with her दादी, ताऊ, ताई, भय्या & us, & परदादी or परनानी visiting now & then. 
She has travelled since she was 2 & half months. She has seen people appear & disappear in her life. Mashi comes, Mashi goes, Dida-mashi comes, Didamashi goes, Bui comes, Bui goes, all the time. She  herself goes to sleep in one location & wakes up in another.
She NEVER confused between Hindi & Baanglaa. I do not mean to scare parents whose kids are having trouble absorbing 3 or 4 languages at a time, but at age 1 & half, when her total vocabulary was less than 50, including BOTH languages, & she had NO sentence, she still instantly & without cue, shifted from Baanglaa to Hindi & vice versa depending on who she was talking to. My mother-in-law was a bit concerned initially whether she would "understand Hindi" coming from my parent's home ,but she allayed all such fears within a week. I personally, never gave it a THOUGHT.
But with English I am concerned. Because, we did not speak to her in English. This is because, I must speak to her in Baanglaa, otherwise, she will forget it. Now, she is proceeding from alphabets to sound words & sight words in school. I am very confused as to how to give her sight words, when she has no spoken vocabulary in English.
To figure this out is my first task this school year.