Comments on: Reasons to Read to Your Child in Your Mother Tongue

By: Baby Loves Books « Tulika's English, Bilingual Indian Children's Books

Baby Loves Books « Tulika's English, Bilingual Indian Children's Books — Sat, 22 May 2010 03:05:32 +0000

[...] said before how much I enjoy reading with my daughter M in a language other than English and it’s no different now. I’m enjoying every minute of sharing these new finds with [...]

By: Baby Loves Books « Reading in Mother Tongue - How Bilingual Kids Learn Language

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:21:17 +0000

[...] Our first language is Tamil. The spoken and written forms are VERY different. To someone who’s had no exposure to written or formal Tamil, reading from a Tamil book or poem will probably seem like a different language the first few times…unless they pay keen attention to certain words. Earlier, I wrote about how this happened with my daughter the first couple of times I read to her in Tamil. [...]

By: babylovesbooks

babylovesbooks — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:44:26 +0000

@Malarvizhi Jayanth – Thanks for your comment. Yes, when it comes to kids, there’s really no limit to how much they can learn and absorb. Most of the time, it’s a question of how much effort and time we grown-ups are willing to invest in them. I’m sure Tulika books make a great impact in this regard. I will definitely be checking them out for my daughter.

By: Malarvizhi Jayanth

Malarvizhi Jayanth — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 05:01:01 +0000

How wonderful to hear that! Tulika brings out bi-lingual books and books in the Indian languages because we believe the same. While children are always thrilled by them, parents and teachers still seem to have a mental block when it comes to buying books that are ‘not in English’.
So it’s great to hear parents like you telling the world about the beauty of reading in the mother tongue. Thank you:)

By: babylovesbooks(Rupa)

babylovesbooks(Rupa) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:23:03 +0000

Hi Sandhya – Thanks for stopping by and writing such a perceptive comment. I know what you mean – since kids are exposed to English wherever they go and speak to their friends and outsiders in English, it’s easier for them to switch to it very often. They just start feeling naturally more comfortable with the language. Your idea of exposing her to Marathi songs and stories is great and seems to be working. That’s where audio books such as those from Karadi tales come to play and I think they’re the perfect way to hook kids to a language. Using music and stories is definitely among the best ways to teach kids pretty much anything.

By: sandhya

sandhya — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:50:37 +0000

I fully agree with you. Our mother-tongue is Marathi, and I speak to my daughter exclusively in Marathi when we are not with company or if it is not something to do with her studies. However she seems to slip into English often at home too and I have to keep reminding her to speak Marathi. We stay out of Maharashtra and she does not hear our language elsewhere. I have tried to source Marathi books but do not find many by Pratham or Tullika. We have some books by Navneet, but they do not have the effortlessness of a normal spoken language; it is a very flowery Marathi not easily comprehensible to a child who has no formal exposure to it. I have also got cassettes, CDs of stories told in Marathi. She enjoys these very much. I feel that she should have a firm footing in our language to really have a firm footing in our culture. No matter what other language she learns.
Sorry for the long post!