free books and stories and fables and poems and rhymes, all online, in so many languages!

While researching my articles on French language activities for Multilingual Living, I realized that I could probably stop buying books for Griffin entirely--both in English and in French--beause so very many books exist online already, and some on websites that can even boast animation and/or professional narrators!

(Oh, let's be honest. I'll never stop buying books.)

Anyway, here are some sites that I've explored lately. I hope you'll enjoy them too!

free online children's books--because you can't always find an older cousin to read to you

Tumblebooks:
I first blogged about this program three years ago; read my original post about how it works, the few aspects I don't like about it, and how you could use it in a language classroom. Briefly, you select a picture book, chapter book, or nonfiction book in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, or Russian. (Predictably, English predominates; click on the "language learning" button at the top of the page to access the books in one of the other languages.) You watch the story unfurl onscreen, with a narrator reading aloud while the lines of text are highlighted like a karaoke storytime. You can opt to have it advance automatically or manually. Many of the picture books have activities that accompany them--matching games, quiz questions, and so forth. If your public library or school doesn't subscribe to Tumblebooks, you can access it through the Lafayette Public Library's kid's stuff page.

We Give Books:
At this charitable giving site, everytime you read a book, the publisher (Penguin Books) will donate one to the nonprofit organization of your choice. You have to sign up (for free) and the selection is fairly limited (smaller than Tumblebooks), but it's hard to argue with the idea! The books, all in English, are geared to ages ten and under and include both DK nonfiction titles (which my kids in Reading Buddies love) and familiar picture books--definitely a plus. You (or your child) do have to actually read the book yourself from pages identical to those of the printed book.

Lire et RéCréer:
This site in French has short stories, fables, poems, and nursery rhymes, both classic and contemporary. The text is presented on the screen, often with simple animation and background music, but the reader is (usually) invited to pronounce it aloud (note that music will start when the site is opened).The tales are divided by genre and also by age. It doesn't have as many "bells and whistles" as Tumblebooks, but it's all in French and the selection (and variety of genres) is a lot better!

Librivox:
Like Tumblebooks, Librivox reads books to you; unlike Tumblebooks, this program focuses on books for adults, and all of the texts are recorded by volunteers from their homes, which makes the sound quality less professional. On the other hand, this means that new texts are constantly being added. (By "new," I mean "previously unrecorded." The books are limited to those in the public domain, which means nothing from the past few decades.) Librivox offers texts in just about any language you can think of, limited only by the languages that their volunteer readers around the world speak, from Catalan to Korean to Latvian to Old English to Tagalog to Urdu (click here and select a language from the drop-down menu to see what books are available in the languages of your choice). Among their choices in French, I haven't found anything appropriate for Griffin or Carl--even the fables by Jean de la Fontaine would go over their heads, at least without illustrations, and no way would I give a preschooler the original versions of Charles Perrault's fairy tales! In English, though, they have stories by Beatrix Potter, Thornton Burgess, Aesop, and Mother Goose, plus The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (and with 10,000+ texts in English, many more are bound to be appropriate for kids).

Reading A-Z:
I found this one almost four years ago, before I started working as a reading enrichment program coordinator at the library; I'll be exploring it more thoroughly now to steal (er, adapt) some of their ideas for my Reading Buddies. As I stated in my original post, you must purchase a subscription ($85/year for one classroom) to access all of their materials, but they also offer a generous number of free samples. You print out the black-line books and staple them together (then the kids can color them themselves). As the site is designed for teachers of English, the vast majority of their books are in English, but they also have a selection in French and in Spanish (both translations of their original books in English). The subheading on the home page of this site claims "Everything You Need to Teach Reading," and I pretty much believe them--everything from phonics to poetry to readers' theatre to worksheets to lesson plans to assessments is here.

Enchanted Learning:
Like Reading A-Z, this subscription-based site markets itself to teachers with printable books and worksheets. Its offerings are much more limited when it comes to books, but the site provides more printable activities, games, and worksheets. You can also access all of their materials without subscribing ($20/year) if you're willing to look at ads and not have the prettiest versions of the pages when you print them. While Reading A-Z seems very educational, the Enchanted Learning stuff strikes me as more fun. Check out their materials, including short printable books, about Africa and Kwanzaa, in American Sign Language, about Canada, about China and the Chinese New Year, in Spanish and about Cinco de Mayo and Dia de los Muertos, in French, in Swedish, in Dutch, in German, in Hebrew and about Hanukkah, in Italian, about Japan and Japanese crafts, in Portuguese, in Russian, and about geography in general. Enchanted Learning's materials in English are divided into categories on the home page.

So now it's your turn!  What do you think about sites like these?  Do you prefer the interactive ones or the simpler text-based sites?  Which are your favorites (and least favorites) (and why)?  What others do you recommend?

Note: Do check out the comments, where readers have recommended many more worthy sites in the past two three years!

Profile: Amelia learning English and Japanese in Japan

My dear friend Lori, who teaches English at a college in Japan and is married to a fellow American, was gracious enough to answer some questions about her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter's language acquisition process.

Lori and her husband plan on spending one more year or so in Japan and then returning to Colorado. I'll ask her for an update on Amelia's progress in Japanese next year and then again after they've been back in the US for a few months--it'll be interesting to see how much Japanese she will have learned by then, how much she'll remember when she receives less input in Japanese in the US, and if Lori will be able to teach her more Spanish when they live in Colorado (where it's more commonly heard than in Japan!).

What is your language background and history?
I majored in Spanish and received an MA in TESL/TEFL. I have taught ESL for almost 10 years in the US, Mexico and Japan. I am familiar with British English [Lori's mom is from England] and have a basic understanding of Japanese.

What languages are you exposing your child to, and how?
Japanese: We have been living in Japan for the last 2 1/2 years. She goes to a bilingual international preschool; she interacts with native Japanese speakers at swim class; she plays with the Japanese neighbors; we read Japanese books and watch TV together.
Spanish: Occasionally we read a book in Spanish; I sometimes translate phrases; she enjoys watching Dora the Explorer and picks up some words from the show.

Why do you want your child to learn a second language?
I want her to have as many positive experiences in her life as possible, and being able to communicate with and understand people of different cultures can help her.

How well does your child understand and speak the second language? What does she think about it? Does she have language preferences?
She speaks a little Japanese and I believe she understands somewhat more than she speaks. She knows some simple adjectives (hot, cold, delicious, ouch); can count to 10; knows some body parts (elbow, hand, eyes, etc.); sings short songs; knows some high-frequency phrases (come here, let’s go). She thinks Japanese is ‘good,' and it’s ‘strange’ when her father tries to speak it. However, at times she pretends to “speak” Japanese with imaginary friends, which is generally babble with a Japanese word thrown in here or there, although I’m not sure that she is cognizant of their meanings. She doesn’t like being prompted to speak the Japanese that she does know to acquaintances.

What challenges have occurred as you teach your child a second language?
Attention and focus – She’s 3; what can I say? She likes to play and changes activities often throughout the day. Her father has shown little interest in learning Japanese, and he is the stay-at-home parent, so she gets little exposure when she is with him.

What resources have been most useful to you?
Children’s TV programming for 2 hours once a week in the afternoons; her school – she learns songs and high-frequency phrases; books (especially song books); neighbors.

What do you think parents, caretakers, teachers, and/or researchers need to know about teaching a second language to children? What do you wish you had known when you started?
Tap in to children’s natural attraction to singing and dancing. Many instances of her productive use of language have been singing songs she has learned at school. She also enjoys the children’s TV programming because of the songs and music.

Answer your own question now--what did I not ask about that you want to comment on?
What are the sociolingistic messages that are being sent to the child?
Personally, I think she recognizes that many of our Japanese friends and acquaintances speak English, so perhaps she doesn’t see learning Japanese as imperative or important. Also, the children’s TV programming has some English instruction, so she knows other people want to learn English, which may be leading her to presume that English is “better” than Japanese. I considered putting her into a kindergarten, but when I learned that there was a strict rule against using Japanese in the morning classes, I worried that she would conclude that using Japanese can be bad or wrong.

Back to Sarah now: I'd like to hear if readers have noticed similar perceptions on the part of bilingual children that they know--do they place a greater value on one language over another? Where do they get that message originally? How and why and at what age does that change (if ever)? What do you do to encourage kids to think favorably of both languages that they are exposed to? I would imagine that the older the child gets, the more important his peer group's opinion becomes. And I am also reminded of countless stories I've heard about immigrants to the US--including my own great-grand-parents--who devalued their mother tongue in favor of embracing English, encouraging their children to speak only English, even refusing to teach them the family language. I've read that typically by the third generation in this country, children don't speak or even understand their grand-parents' language. What a shame to lose that richness and closeness and cultural heritage!