Homeschooling and Raising a Bilingual Kid.

Maybe it will sound like an overstatement but I love schooling my son. He shall go to pre-school by now but because of this pandemic, we are homeschooling. Actively involving myself with his educational process is also helping me in many ways.

But that's another thing, I might talk about it in detail another day. What I am about to say today is about our educational system and raising a bilingual kid in this.

I don't like our education system, especially primary-level education. It's too bookish. Kids have to learn all the letters, numbers, words, and everything even general knowledge, animals, vegetables; anything and everything in pre-school. When they are in first grade, we put them learning so many unnecessary bookish things, it makes me sad.

We fail to differentiate between what we can memorize and what data we can collect easily.

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Homeschooling is not a thing/option here. As it's not part of our culture so I wouldn't say, I know much about it too.

So what should be the alternative then?

For me, I'm not stressing at all about my son's education. He is learning gradually and will continue this. What matters most to me is making sure he is enjoying it.

And I'm proud to say that he does enjoy his educational process. And as he is a 'monitor time free' child so it's easy for me to connect him with educational materials.

But another problem is we are bilingual, schools prefer to teach two languages (English and Bangla) at a time/side by side. So for a kid, it's hard to take everything at once.

And Bangla is not an easy language, from writing to spelling, from reading to pronunciation; everything is hard in our native language. Also, bilingual kids mix up both languages very often.

What to do then?

As we talk in Bangla so my son is getting curious about reading some Bangla books/story books available around. But it's hard to make him understand the reading process. So I'm teaching him the basics and giving him some basic writing lessons, so he can memorize and understand the process better.

He is progressing too fast and we are hopeful in a few months he can read and write in Bangla.

But then, what will happen to his English learning?

Maybe I need to teach him that also/side by side. He can write the alphabet. But I'm more into teaching him reading. It will introduce him to a new world of reading books.

My son is 4.7 years now. I feel it's necessary to make it clear that I never give him any pressure to read/write. As he is a monitor-time-free child so it's easy for me to attach him with books. And that's what helps me most.

To date, learning is a fun game for him.

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