Hannah is beginning to read. She is in the process of developing automaticity. But she has trouble remembering some of the sight words she is supposed to remember by now. I keep questioning whether this is the effect of having to work with two languages or whether she has a learning problem. Those little books that have a lot of sight words repeated allow her to repeat the words, but she is simply repeating and does not retain the info. This is because she looks at the pictures and she relies on her background knowledge. What seems to be helping is having her read a book she really likes, like Pinkilicious. This book has a lot of the sight words she is supposed to know. But at the same time, it has content! And she is more interestered an invested in reading this book than in reading those little books that only provide repetition.
I need to have Hannah develop reading confidence, which is what she lacks. As a parent, it is very difficult to see your child struggling and you are telling her. Yes! You see! You can read! This is great! If anyone can give me suggestions on how to help her develop confidence, I would really appreciate it!
I don't have any authority on this, but my gut tells me that 1) you are probably right that because she's managing two languages, it might just take longer to read in both and 2) with kids, they just need to enjoy the experience of reading so that they continue to read. So if you can just continue to help her find stories that appeal to her and read them with her, that's probably the most important thing. And I suppose choosing stories that are both manageable language-wise and enjoyable would help her confidence. Good luck! :-)
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