My son and I have been playing with letters for more than a year now and he has gotten quite good at recognizing and pronouncing them. He has come to the point where he is enjoying trying to read shorter words and while in Sweden I bought a couple of learn-to-read-books that we have started to use. I really want to help my son to the gift of being able to read Swedish – there is a big world that will open up for him when he can enjoy Swedish books and magazines and catalogues by himself. We are in no hurry though, but since he is a curious and receptive little guy I want to take the chance to encourage his reading practice as much as I can.
In Sweden it is easy to practice reading. You can read on everything like a milk package or a jar of jam. But Swedish words are all but nonexistent in everyday Japanese life so I try to make an effort to include written Swedish words in my son’s daily environment. We have put up some labels with Swedish words on furniture in the house, chair, table, fridge and so on. I think it was more fun for him to do the stickers than to actually look at them and read on them, but it is letter play anyway. Another activity we do is playing the letter-searching-board-game we got for Christmas present two years ago. And while I am trying to think of other fun ways to introduce the spice of Swedish words into our daily life, the base of our daily language practice is still reading good old fashioned books.
Every time we go back to Sweden, half of the luggage on our return flight consists of books, games or other Swedish language connected items you cannot find in Japan. The Swedish books have become our treasure – every night before bed we go to my son’s bookshelf, and he picks out what he wants us to read. I cannot think of a better way to finish the day.
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