Becoming bilingual
One of my first memories of reading dates back about 13 years. Aged at about 3 or 4 years old, I was still tumbling over small hands and feet, unaware of what to expect when it came down to the very concept of reading, and from whom to expect learning it from.
My mother was my greatest influence when it came down to learning the basics of reading and verbal communication. She used to read to me often, wanting for me to get an early start, due to the fact that she, herself, was only fluent in the language of spanish.
Back during 2003, my family and I lived in Fort Hood, Texas, where the hispanic community was strong in numbers. As a result of her being around many native spanish speakers, my mother had no need to learn english
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I paused, pondered for a moment before responding with “cepillo de dientes.” She turned the card so that it faced me, smiled before turning the page. This was all the proof I needed to know that my translation was in fact, correct. I beamed with pride at my newly learnt word, excited to learn more.
It was in this unique way that my mom figured out how to teach herself the english language, as well as raising me as a bilingual child. Every page that she’d flip would expand both of our vocabularies in ways that changed both of our lives entirely. Our tongues tripped over the new sounds, tentative around the differences between the ‘sh’ and ‘ch’ sounds, a slow but successful hands on learning experience. By the time I went to Preschool, and eventually Kindergarten, I knew enough of both languages to speak, read, and even write a bit in both english and spanish. My mother learned english fluently in about a year, and was able to communicate well for learning the language in such a short period of time. The simple words from those flipbooks ended up being the fundamental building blocks for our entire form of communication