French language primer. Any recomendations?

[Elspeth]

Hi I live in a multi lingual house. My daughter has just finished learning to read in English at school and she now desperately wants to read her french books independently. As I don't speak french and my husband didn't learn french until he moved to Rouon in his teens we have no idea what the best books are for teaching a young child (5 going on 25 :-D ) to read in french. We don't need my first words type books as both daughter and daddy speak french and we have a fair amount of story books in french but they're a bit too complicated for a learner reader, what I'm looking for is the french equivalent of Six in a Bed and Other Stories (Read With Biff, Chip and Kipper Level1) . Any ideas???
Thanks

[Cleo]

I love the Martine books, for example Martine fait la cuisine or Martine et les sports. There are tons of them and I love the illustrations.

[Cleo]

You can get a number of early readers in French, called J'Apprends À Lire. They are published by Scholastic and are similar to your example. Amazon Canada probably would have more of them than Amazon US.

[Elspeth]

Thank you very much. Amazon UK had a fair few. Have ordered Martine fait la cuisine and Martine a la mere , I looked up J'Apprends À Lire just what we wanted...... amazon basket full :-D thanks again.

[Cleo]

You're very welcome, Elspeth! You might like this too: http://www.japprendsalire-magazine.com It's a monthly magazine that comes with a CD where one of the stories is read in a number of ways (ie. fully, then leaving words out, etc.) It was very expensive, but I found it invaluable and my daughter still pulls them out and reads them. If I can think of anything else, I'll let you know!

[Payna's]

Hello Elspeth, you also have the J'aime Lire magazine, very good!

For Martine books, they're great, you should try:
Martine, petit rat de l'opéra
Martine en avion
Martine fête maman

There is also Jean-Lou and Sophie series, this is my favorite:
Jean-Lou et Sophie découvrent la mer

[Phil]

I lived in Paris when I was five, and I remember picking up some French from comic books. There was a Mickey Mouse comic called Le Journal de Mickey that I read a lot.

[Carol]

I have two French-speaking grandchildren who live in Belgium and I have been looking for books for my granddaughter to read in French- particularly the French equivalent of Biff, Chip and Kipper, which has already been mentioned here and which I have bought for their English reading. I will investigate the Martine books, which I had not heard of. The cover picture looks somewhat boring and old fashioned on the book I looked quickly at, but I see it has a lot of excellent reviews. Thanks folks!

[Rosemarie]

There is a series of colourful paperbacks called J'aime lire. If you google it, you can get an idea of what they are like. They are used in French immersion classes in Toronto as extra reading material for young readers in French- very colourful and fun.

[Carol]

Thanks Rosemarie.
I find the education system very strange in Belgium. The children do not learn how to read or write until they are 7. My grandson is now 8 and the last year has been very hard for him to suddenly start on education after years of being at school from the age of 2 and basically just playing. My daughter has been teaching him to read in English but it has been an uphill task as his first language is French. My granddaughter is now 5 and clearly wants to read and write so again daughter is attempting to teach her, but in English, not in French, but it would seem better to also start in French, as that is her first language. The school never seems to send any reading books home for grandson so hasn't been helpful in order to find out what to give granddaughter, plus there would seem to be opposition to teaching children before the age of 7.

[Rosemarie]

That is very strange. I know that children are ready for reading at a certain age, but waiting until seven seems bizarre, in that it frustrates those that are ready.
I am a retired teacher and taught English as a second language in elementary schools. Reading skills are transferable from one language to another. The students who were fluent readers in one language picked up English quicker than the children who had less formal schooling.
Do they do any pre- reading activities? A good way to get children interested in reading is reading aloud, with the child beside you. They often teach themselves to read that way.
Good luck. Playing all day can get boring for children. They like doing meaningful activities.

[Carol]

Rosemarie wrote: "That is very strange. I know that children are ready for reading at a certain age, but waiting until seven seems bizarre, in that it frustrates those that are ready.
I am a retired teacher and taug..."

I absolutely agree that waiting until 7 seems bizarre and it does not help children who might be dyslexic or have other reading/writing problems. I taught both my children to read from the age of 4. I have a feeling (might be wrong) that this educational system is common in Germanic countries. I went to see a Steiner school many years ago, and they also did not teach reading until 7, so I did not send my children there. My grandchildren seem to do a varied range of activities at school before then, and both love their school which they have attended since the age of 2.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

In Germany, when I was a child, we also did not learn to read until the age of six or seven, in grade one. It in no way was an issue for me because I learned to read very quickly and also had had especially my grandmothers read classic German childrens' novels to me since I was five (which still continued after I had learned to read). It totally worked for me, but might not be for everyone.

But I also do not think that parents pushing their children to read earlier and earlier is necessarily always that good, as I have seen both children who could read at an early age but not really understand what they were reading and children totally turned off reading because their parents were relentlessy pushing them to read. There always needs to be a balance but I personally have major issues with parents who continuously push reading skills for even four or five year olds, especially if this becomes a task and a burden (and not fun anymore).