As those of you with preschoolers and early elementary schoolers may have discovered, it’s difficult to find bilingual books to transition them from the baby board book phase to the early readers phase. Books need to be complex enough for them to learn new vocabulary, but short enough for a bedtime story.

My Big Sister/Mi hermana mayor by Samuel Caraballo is the bilingual story of a little boy named Pablito, who spends the days with his big sister, Anita, while his parents are at work. Anita makes him breakfast, walks him to the school bus, takes him to play after school, and helps him with his homework.

Although we parents may relate to having been raised by a sibling more so than our little ones will, they will still revel in the sweet relationship between Pablito and Anita.

My Big Sister/Mi hermana mayor is beautifully illustrated and is one of my son’s go-to stories now, especially since he has two big stepsisters. If your child is the eldest, he might also be inspired to look after the little ones even more after reading about what Anita does for her brother.

Once you’ve exhausted this book, check out some other bilingual titles from Piñata Books.

{© SpanglishBaby Media}

My son Santiago turned two a month ago and I am blown away by how his vocabulary has exploded. Like his sister, he was an early talker. But the real expansion in his repertoire of words has taken place in the last couple of month.

He loves music. Not only to dance to it, but also to sing it. Just last night, he was serenading me right before bedtime and even after I could hear him signing through the monitor for a good 10 minutes after we turned the lights off in his room. Some of his favorite songs are:

• El patio de mi casa
• Aserrín, Aserrán
• Tengo una muñeca
• Los pollitos dicen

His sister Vanessa taught him the majority of these, which I guess is one of the huge benefits of having an older bilingual sibling.

Our nanny is also responsible not only for teaching him some of these songs, but also for his extended vocabulary. In fact, a couple of days ago he surprised me with his knowledge of several colors in Spanish.

All this got me thinking about how different things can be the second time around.

I clearly remember the real worries I had sending Vanessa to a parent’s day out program when knew practically no English when she was 2 years old. I wondered if I should’ve spoken to her in English to prepare her for the unknown territory into which I was making her venture. Time would prove that there was no need for me to worry, but – as many lessons in life – I could’ve only known this by going through the process.

When it came time for Santiago to follow in her sister’s footsteps in mid-August as the parent’s day out program got started, not once did I worry about how he’d communicate with his teachers as I had done years before with Vanessa.

While I wasn’t able to stay at home with my son as long as I did with my daughter, we’ve been blessed with two amazing niñeras who have definitely done their share to enrich his Spanish vocabulary. And for that, I will always be grateful.

Unfortunately, because I am more lax and have less doubts about raising bilingual children this time around, I’m embarrassed to say I feel like I’ve dropped the ball in one of the most important areas of language learning: reading. It’s not like I don’t read to him in Spanish at all, but how much I do read pales in comparison to what I used to read to his sister when she was his age. Santiago loves books – which he calls lolos – and this is one area where I have promised myself I will improve. It is only fair.

For now, the kids still talk to each other in Spanish, but that’s because I’ve told Vanessa that Santiago doesn’t speak English, which is the honest truth. As he gets a bit older and his exposure to English increases (he’ll be attending preschool three times a week next school year), I am imagining things will change.

Deep down inside, though, I hope I’m wrong. But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Promise to keep you posted.

What are your views in raising bilingual siblings? Do they help each other out? What are your stories?

Photo by gemsling

We went to a friend’s party this weekend and I was interested in seeing how Vanessa would act around the children there. Namely, what language she would be using. We don’t get to see each other very often – mostly due to the distance between us – so it has been a good few months since Vanessa last interacted with my friend’s children who are being raised via the OPOL method by my Argentinian friend and her American husband.

I was interested in seeing in what language the interaction would take place for a few reasons.

First of all, for some reason, unbeknown to me, Vanessa has been using more English than ever. It’s almost as if she just discovered que puede hablar inglés! It all started about two weeks ago and the only thing it has coincided with is the fact that she is no longer attending preschool. I still haven’t figured out how these two events are related, but it’s the only thing different in her life. As you can imagine, I’ve accepted once and for all that my worries about her not understanding English – which I fretted about here - were completely unfounded.

Ironically, lately I’ve found myself taking my own advice – which I dished out here – with my own daughter. When she talks to me in English, I usually just tell her I don’t understand. I wonder how long that’ll work? I mean, she has to know that I do understand. She hears me speak it all the time with those who don’t speak Spanish. In other words, most everyone else in our lives.

Anyhow, going back to why I was interested in how she would interact with the children, the biggest reason for this is because we’re only 15 weeks away from Vanessa becoming la hermana mayor and I have started wondering how this journey of raising bilingual children will work out the second time around. A falta de hermanos, amigos.

I’ve heard it’s a little bit more difficult with the second (or third, fourth, etc) child. I guess it has to do with the fact that among them, children tend to chose the community language – in this case, English. It seems to be almost an automatic thing and when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, in our particular case, by the time BB2 (sorry, we know he is a boy, but we still don’t have a name) arrives, Vanessa will be just over three years old. She will have been going to preschool – albeit only twice a week – for a whole year which equates to being exposed to the English language for that length of time. Remember, we use the mL@H method. So we only speak to her in Spanish. Come September, she will be attending preschool three times a week, so her exposure to English will be even greater.

Besides, as BB2 gets a little bit bigger (i.e. when he can actually interact), and starts sharing experiences with her sister outside our home, I imagine he’ll just follow Vanessa’s lead – as most siblings do. Vanessa didn’t have that.

I have already started telling her que su hermanito “no speak English.” And she always want to know why. To which I respond, because like her, English will come later for him. I’m hoping that will work. Who knows?

The research I’ve read – and there isn’t a lot out there – talks mostly about families using the OPOL method and it suggests that parents tend to be less strict about using the method once a sibling is born. Since this is not our case, I don’t really know what happens in families using the mL@H method. I mean, we pretend to continue doing the same thing we’ve been doing all along, mostly because as I’ve explained in the past, it’s what comes naturally to us.

In terms of what happened at this weekend’s party, I had actually expected Vanessa to use mostly English. But I was happily surprised, again! She actually did her own share of code-switching between English and Spanish and for no apparent reason. I wonder if she’ll do the same with her baby brother? How about: will she correct and actually help her brother with his Spanish? One thing seems to be for sure, BB2 will get a lot more exposure to English – and may I add, much earlier – than Vanessa ever did. How much will that affect his Spanish?

Lots of unanswered questions…for now. In the end, I think it’s important to remember that we are all individuals and personality also has a lot to do with outcome, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

If you have more than one child, maybe you can enlighten me about what lies ahead for our family. Are things really different the second time around?