7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child - A Review

7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child by Naomi Steiner and Susan L. Hayes, 2008

This book provides an excellent overview of issues and practical methods for raising a bilingual child.  Chapters are highly readable, with charts/tables that neatly summarize all major points worth considering. She discusses bilingual families who are raising simultaneous bilingual children, multilingual families raising multilingual children, and monolingual families who are raising bilingual children…. And all that’s in between. She reviews the OPOL (One Parent One Language) approach and others.  She also includes brief comments on raising a bilingual child with learning disabilities.

 The seven steps, as she describes them:

1. Building the Foundation
   Defines bilingualism and what it means to different families.  Talks about advantages and myths.

2. Defining your Bilingual goals
   Supplies worksheets helping a family determine motivations and language choices

3. Becoming a Bilingual Coach
   Defining and dividing tasks = who speaks which language when, etc..

4. Creating Your Bilingual Action Plan
   Examples of different families and their action plans;  Worksheets; how to find support and resources

5. Leaping over Predictable Obstacles
   Gives her advice for solving six of what she sees as predictable Obstacles to raising a child bilingually

6. The “Two Rs”:  Reading and Writing in Two Languages

7. Adapting to School:  The Bilingual Child Goes to School
   Describes history of Bilingual education in the public schools of the USA; briefly reviews how to handle special situations.

 
Includes resource list for children and parents.