Recently I’ve heard the following sentence often “I do not want to teach my child the Cyrillic alphabet now, because I do not want to confuse them.” I have to admit this sentence provokes discomfort in me, similar to when I hear that kids who have two or more languages in their lives get confused. Kids are not confused and I believe they are capable of much more than what us parents typically think.
I wrote the following text to provide a positive example and show that learning two different scripts in a short space of time is possible and gives brilliant results.
(Note to people less familiar, Serbian language can be written with two alphabets: Ćirilica/the Cyrillic alphabet is a Slavic script derived from Greek; Latinica is similar to West European alphabets)
Long-term bilinguals
When I was little, I wasn’t explicitly taught to trust to my instinct, therefore as a young adult I was not guided by it so much. However, when I became a mum I started to listen to my instinct more and more. This is when my gut told me to transmit Serbian to my kids. Not only to transmit it, but that I would love my children to use it long term.
Reading
Books and reading to my children in my language have always been an important resource for preserving Serbian outside Serbia. Written language is rich and more complex than spoken language. We enrich our language by reading. My husband and I still read to our kids before they fall asleep, every evening. Each one of us reads in their own language of course. One evening, I read to Klara and he reads to Lola. The following evening we switch.
As long as I read to them, I know they will consume literature in Serbian. However, what will happen when they decide they do not want us to put them to sleep by reading? They will put themselves to sleep by reading (I hope!).
In order for them to be able to stay in touch with the written Serbian language, they need to know how to read and write in Serbian. By reading, they will continue to broaden their vocabulary and indirectly enrich their spoken Serbian1.
Why Cyrillic alphabet?
Our children who learn one of the alphabets in school outside of Serbia, usually pick up Serbian Latin alphabet (latinica) on their own with ease. This is why I decided to let latinica “take care“ of itself. I believed that it was Serbian Cyrillic alphabet (ćirilica) that should receive attention.
You will now think that I have always used ćirilica and that I still type texts and emails using this script. On the contrary! Personally, I have always used latinica more than ćirilica. I studied English language and literature, taught English as a second language and translated between Serbian and English (I still do). Given that latinica is also used in Serbia, as well as in the region of ex-Yugoslavia, for me it was always more natural to use latinica.
However, when I became a mum I started realising that our Cyrillic script is unique. Even cool to an extent. There was a need in me to preserve it, just as I wanted to preserve the language.
I thought that what Vuk Stefanović Karadžić2 said “Write as you speak, read as it is written” was too authentic and valuable not to be transmitted onto the future generations. This is why I said to myself when Klara was little “Let’s try and learn ćirilica through play before she starts school, we have nothing to lose!”. That is how we started when she was about three.
Method
Before I start describing the steps of the acquisition process, it is important to mention that we learned the script in a fun way, bit by bit. Through play, singing and smiling. The activities were short, strategically positioned in between other games, creative play and going to the park. More often they involved movement through the room, rather than sitting at the table.
There is an excellent youtube channel you may be familiar with it. It is called Pevaj sa Sandrom and it contains a great song called Azbuka3. The song has a melodic tune that children learn fast. The branch of this channel is called Uči sa Sandrom, where you can find three-minute videos in which the author of the channel presents individual letters of the Serbian Cyrillic script.
We combined videos in this channel with the book Na slovo na slovo, publisher Vulkančić, edition Bebin svet. Once a week we “did” one letter: we would watch a video about the letter, then we would look at the letter in the book naming different items that start with that particular letter.
Then we progressed onto so called “matching” activity. First, I would write a letter on a post-it note, and Klara would stick it onto the same letter on the azbuka poster. This poster is still in kids’ room today by the way. When she moved on from this activity, we started using flash cards. She would match a flash card with the picture and word, ie jabuka (apple), with letter J on the poster. Finally, she was matching the whole words: a flashcard with the word and a picture of lopta (ball) to another card with the word lopta written on it.
Then we started using “magic” milk caps. Since she was too little to start practising writing and while we were still working on her graphomotor skills, I wrote letters on the milk caps (one cap one letter). This is how we started arranging letters and making words. Short ones of course: dan, noć, belo, žuto, krug…
We started practicing writing letters in the activity books when she was around four years old. Little by little we progressed. By the time she started compulsory preschool (Reception class, which starts when children are between four and five years old), Klara was excellent at identifying and writing the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet. She was able to read words with up to three to four letters.
The scaffolding effect
When she started school, true synergy occured. As she was making progress with reading and writing in English, this seemed to also be improving her reading and writing skills in ćirilica. Basically, she was getting more skilled in reading and writing longer words in Serbian. You can read more about the whole experience in the text My Five-Year-Old Bilingual. In here, I would just state that what Colin Baker claims4 in his book “A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism” turned out to be true for us: being familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet helped Klara to pick up English phonics, and phonics in turn helped her continue make progress in reading and writing ćirilica.
How things are today
Klara is now in Year 2 at school and she is reading books (with me and her dad) before going to sleep. In school, they have a long-term task to read every day. After reading, they need to write down what they have read in their Reading Record. Klara told her teacher that she read in Serbian with her mum, and the teacher replied that it doesn’t matter what language she read in, what is important was that she read regularly. She asked her to record what she read in Serbian with her mum, which we now do diligently.
Favourite books
Isadora Moon is great for kids to read. The font is big and it has a lot of pictures. Ana Kadabra, too. We also love reading Jasminka Petrović. When we were just starting with her reading, we used to read smaller picture books like Krokovu and Singi Lumba. We also loved reading Shoe people (those are the books from my childhood and are valuable antique items).
Secondborn bilingual
Oliver, Klara’s younger brother, is now four. I have been learning azbuka through play with him, in the same way as with Klara, for the past year. As every child is different, I didn’t have a clue how the process of getting acquainted with the Cyrillic alphabet would go with him. What I can proudly say is that Lola can now write our names “from his head” (ie not aided by the dotted letters he would need to write over). At his nursery, where they have started getting familiar with English sounds in a relaxed way, they tell me he holds the pen well and is making an excellent progress.
What I see is that he looks up to her, to her skills of reading and writing in both languages. When we do the tasks in the activity books, Klara often takes the role of the teacher and helps him with ćirilica. I am forever grateful to her for this.
The Result
Klara still often comes home from school and brings me drawings and messages written in ćirilica. In school, I dare say, she is one of the stronger students in reading and writing in English. In our household, she is in charge of writing cards, in Serbian and in English. As for Oliver, the other day, with a little bit of support and persuasion, he wrote the word dvadeset (as well as borovnica, dinosaurus, filadendron) with the milk caps and so he seems to be doing great too.
Learning two scrips from the early age is possible. The scrips complement each other and coexist in our children’s clever minds. Just like the languages.
As with language acquisition, invested love, time and creativity gave fruitful results. These results in turn open doors to the written, one day maybe even academic language. Reading and writing skills in a language create fertile soil for long-term bilingualism that an individual can nurture after they grow up and leave the family home.
Just as gibanica5, protests and reading “Mika”, “Summer…” or “Hajduk”6, ćirilica represents an additional connection with Serbia and it’s an inseparable component of our life between two languages and two cultures.
- Grosjean, F. (2012), Bilingual, Life and Reality, Harvard University Press, 1st Edition, p. 98. ↩︎
- While writing this text I learnt that the idea that written language should match the spoken one was not originally stated by Vuk, but by a German philologist Johann Christoph Adelung in the 18th century. ↩︎
- Another name for Serbian Cyrillic script. ↩︎
- Baker, C. (2014), A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism, 4th edition, Multilingualism Matters, p. 126. ↩︎
- Gibanica, noun (Serbian) – Traditional cheese pie. ↩︎
- Well known Serbian kids’ books. ↩︎