Bilingual Family Literacy Practices

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Kids are super perceptive. My friend Cynthia, who leads the Gracepoint church in Hsinchu, Taiwan, along with her husband Eugene, told me about her family’s reading times. In their bilingual family, the kids have intuitively developed their literacy practices. She said that when the kiddos want a Chinese book, they go to dad, and when they want an English book, they go to her.

Warning: don’t continue this post if you’re in a place where a squee or an outburst of “awww” would be malapropos!

isaac cynthia reading

Look at that smile! Cynthia reading Why I Love My Mommy with Isaac. Wise book choice, my friend. 

eugene zoe reading

Eugene and Zoe reading a book in Chinese together. Vintage t-shirt!

 

And because the pictures aren’t delightful enough, here is a video!

Peng Family Reading from hemilykim on Vimeo.

Did you grow up in a bilingual (or more) family? What kind of literacy practices did you have? Thoughts on Zoe’s Chinese? Or Isaac’s singing-reading? 🙂

Bookish Treats!

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We’re in full-on Thanksgiving Retreat preparation mode over here at Gracepoint Berkeley church, so I’m going to be “taking it easy” and featuring photos and videos this week. As an evangelist of great stories, as well as THE Story, I’m very excited about this year’s retreat theme of God’s Story, but I’ll stop there, and leave the rest for this weekend!

It warmed my heart to receive this bookish treat from Emily, the 1st grader (not a present from myself), who went to Boston with her family. I was pleasantly surprised to find this waiting for me on my desk. Bookmarks are wonderful souvenirs because you can always use one (unless you don’t read!), and they don’t take up much space in your suitcase. So unlike some other souvenirs, they are definite win-wins for both the giver and the receiver! 🙂

I especially love the curly details in the fancy post-it note. They show a lot of care and effort!

Do you use bookmarks? Proper ones, or do you make them out of scraps or post-its? Or do you turn down (aka. “dog ear*”) your pages?

 

*Confession: I often dog-ear my pages. Gasp!

Reading Spaces (or The Giving Tree pt. 2)

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Kids like to create reading spaces. Remember reading forts, corners, alcoves that you would make with blankets, pillows, chairs, and anything you could find? Flashlights made them even more awesome. And when a make-shift fort isn’t enough, you can make an actual library, as you all saw in the making of Bibliopolis: Minneapolis Branch.

Today’s reading snapshot proves that even the youngest of us can and want to create reading spaces in which we can relax and enjoy our favorite stories. You might remember Ezra from Gracepoint Riverside from the video of Uncle Pastor Ed Kang reading and commenting on The Giving Tree. Apparently he loves this truly sad book, and he likes to enjoy this book during his independent reading times at home.

EzReadingComfy

This is how mom and dad found him. He set this up all by himself! He knows how to get comfy. And he also knows you always need extra books, and a getaway car in your reading space. Just in case.


That smile! It’s not a humorous book in the least, but that’s beside the point. He’s engaged in the story, and he’s creating his own positive reading experiences!

What were/are your or your children’s favorite reading spaces? Share a story below! (Or submit your story by emailing Gracepoint Church Library and maybe it’ll be featured in a future post.)