Teach a kid Russian to Improve his Reading Skills

Learning to read and write Russian early in life helps one’s reading skills later in life too.  I KNEW IT!  No wonder my reading skills are so kick-ass better than the other ordinary mortals… although it took me until 6th grade to start the Russian lessons though!  😉

But what about the Russians themselves?  They must be walking-talking literary geniuses.. right?  Hmm is that so?  In any case, I found there was lot of similarity in the structure of language of Russian and Sanskrit.

The University of Haifa researchers, led by Mila Schwartz, discovered children whose mother tongue is Russian and who acquired literacy in their home language before entering first grade receive higher grades on reading skills tests than their peers who speak only Hebrew or those who speak Russian, but have not learned how to read it.

Schwartz theorizes because of the linguistic complexity of the Russian language, knowing how to read and write Russian gives children an advantage when learning to read other languages.

Schwartz said the research, conducted with Mark Leikin and Professor David Share, supports existing theories that bilingualism alone does not enhance development of reading skills, but that reading skill acquisition is easier when a child already knows how to read another language.

The researchers also found even those who learn how to read Russian, but rarely use it, demonstrate increased abilities in reading acquisition.

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