Bilingual Avenue with Marianna Du Bosq · Interviews with experts and parents sharing best practices for raising and

127: Strategies to improve reading development for bilingual children with Conchi Manresa

·35 min·3 clips

Marianna Du Bosq welcomes listeners to a consulting call with Conchi Manresa, who started speaking English to her kids three years ago.

This episode of Bilingual Avenue features host Marianna Du Bosq in a consulting call with club member Conchi Manresa, a parent raising bilingual children in Spain. They discuss Conchi's specific challenges and strategies in fostering English literacy with her two children. The conversation focuses on practical methods to improve reading development when the parent is a non-native speaker. Conchi explains she began speaking English to her children, Lidia (9) and Antonio (6), consistently about three years ago. She describes a current challenge where her children understand spoken English but resist reading in the language. Marianna asks about the family's current reading habits and available materials to assess the situation. Conchi details using a mix of library books, purchased books, and digital resources like Epic! for reading. She notes her daughter can decode English text but lacks comprehension and motivation compared to her reading in Spanish. A key insight is that reading fluency in the majority language can create a reluctance to engage with texts in the newer, minority language. Marianna suggests the importance of selecting books that perfectly match the child's current English proficiency level, not their age or Spanish reading ability. She emphasizes finding "high-interest, low-level" books to build confidence and positive associations. The concept of "comprehensible input" is central to the strategy, ensuring the child understands most of what they read. Marianna recommends letting the child choose topics they are passionate about, even if those topics lead to simpler books. She advises temporarily setting aside more advanced chapter books if they are causing frustration. Creating a consistent, low-pressure reading routine separate from schoolwork is presented as a critical step. The episode highlights that progress in bilingual literacy often requires tailored, patient strategies different from monolingual approaches. The tone is supportive, educational, and conversational, structured as a personalized coaching session. The style is practical and solution-oriented, with the host providing direct advice in response to the parent's real-world scenario. Parents raising school-age children in a bilingual environment, especially non-native speakers, will find immediate, actionable strategies here. Listeners seeking theoretical discussions on language acquisition or those with very young infants might find the episode less directly applicable.

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