In Mexico you have to be able to read to attend first grade. Is this the norm where you live? I forget if it was the law of the land in Spain and Brazil, where my eldest 2 learnt to read.
Anyway, my sweet B is three months into learning Spanish, in a new country (Mexico), so that she can finally go onto first grade this August.
What does learning to read in a new language, in a new country, look like for a 6 year old? In our house it looks something along the lines of what happened last week during her reading exercises. B became baffled when attempting to read these sentences:
“Tomás y Tita son hermanos hoy irán a una fiesta Mexicana. Los dos visten ropa típica.
A Tita le gustan los tamales. A Tomás le gustan frío o mucho calor, los tacos, y a los dos les encanta el agua de tamarindo.”
“What are tamales, tacos and tamarindos?” she asked. Good question.
Needless to say, even after reading the story a few times she couldn’t remember how to read those three words. They made little sense to this 6 year old Portuguese national, born in Spain, and who just recently moved over to Mexico after 3 years in Brazil.
Learning to read is not only about sounds, letters and words, it is so much more. It is really mostly about tamales, tacos y tamarindos.
ABCD & Me 