II) I invite everyone to the meeting in Italy! Here is the schedule of events:

**Feb. 26, 2023 (Sunday): Rome, from 10 to 11:30 a.m.
DoubleTree by Hilton Rome Monti по адресу: P.za dell’Esquilino, 1, 00185 Roma RM, Italy

**March 1, 2023 (Wednesday): Florence, from 10 to 11:30 a.m.
Centro Culturale Russo
Address: Piazza Santo Spirito 9, Firenze
Tel: + 39 335 395501. www.Centrorussofirenze.it

**March 2-4, 2023 (Thursday – Saturday): Parma – Milan, conference on bilingualism. http://bilingualism.parma.tilda.ws/2023

**March 5, 2023 (Sunday): Milan, from 10 to 11:30 a.m.
Hilton Milan по адресу: Via Luigi Galvani, 12, 20124 Milano MI, Italy

The topic of all presentations will be “Using a Training Aid Called ‘Three Bogatyrs’ to Learn Agreement of Different Parts of Speech in Gender, Number and Case.”
Link to registration form: https://forms.gle/N5TEcAhuaB826tPZ6

III) Soroka’s eBay store has been reopened. I invite everyone who prefers buying textbooks through this site to our store.
https://www.ebay.com/usr/sordig-0

Question #1: Why do we use flashcards for reading?

Answer: Flashcards are easier to sort and shuffle. You can add words that students should read and remove those that they already read well.

Question #2: Does it mean that we learn to recognize the whole word?

Answer: Yes, it does. We learn to recognize the entire word. And this way is fine by me, personally. I like it.

Question #3: If the student learns to read full words, then how will it help him to start reading the new ones?

Answer: In the first phase, the student should read only the words that he learned in the lessons. Reading of Russian words that your students don’t understand is a heavy load for them.

Question #4:   What other reading exercises do you suggest?

Answer: There are a lot of reading exercises. For instance, the Letters Race game is a very popular one. The game is described in the Teacher’s Book (Unit 4, Lesson 1). Here is the video from my lesson.

Another exercise, which is designed for learning letters and their order in the word, is the Crocodile game. This game is also described in the Teacher’s Book. In the video we see (at 4.10) that even mothers are involved in the lesson and are trying to help their kids to guess the word.

And don’t forget about the anagrams, which also help students to learn the letters and the order in the word.

It turns out that we learn to read from the “two sides.” On the one side, we learn the whole word; simultaneously, on the other, we learn the separate parts of the word: the syllables and letters of which the word consists.

What does it give us? Firstly, the Soroka course is focused on learning the spoken Russian language. We use reading as a support for oral speech.

Those who teach small kids can skip the phase of reading.

Secondly, most of my students perceive the Cyrillic alphabet as hieroglyphs. And it is no joke. People often ask this question in America. Ordinarily, I don’t argue about it. My philosophy is that if the Cyrillic alphabet reminds kids of hieroglyphs, then they should just learn to recognize a word like a picture.

But don’t worry, by the end of the Soroka course the students start reading Russian well. They start reading words they didn’t know before, thanks to all of the exercises geared toward reading.

Another important principle is that kids should read only familiar words they encounter during the lessons (it is vital in the Soroka course, and I am constantly talking about it), so that they can understand what they read. This is essential.

I previously wrote an article where I explained how to read during the first class, when students don’t know anything yet.

There was also an article where I explained how to work with the alphabet during the first class.

Please read them one more time, in order to put the information together and get a full picture about reading.

As always, ask your questions in the comments section. Have a good reading!

Answers to the parents’ questions

Про чтение с карточками на уроках РКИ

We open the Student’s Book to Page 2 and see the Russian alphabet. It is not necessary to learn it by heart. It is necessary just to examine the letters and see which letters you are already familiar with. If your native language uses Cyrillic or Latin, then you will not have any difficulty in doing it. First, there are the letters А, У, Е, О. Secondly, there are the letters М, Н, К, Т, В. Meet them with joy as if they are your good acquaintances. That is the way it is that these letters are our friends that we met in a very unpredictable place – in the Russian alphabet. You can listen to the audio file where the announcer reads the Russian alphabet. Show your students letters that are not present in their native alphabet. Don’t be scared, we will learn them!

Now it is time to do the next activity/task. We continue getting acquainted with the Russian letters using the names of the people we know. Have the students write on a piece of paper three to five names of relatives or classmates; write them in Russian, with the Russian letters. You will tell your student that you are going to write the student’s brother’s name in Russian and it looks like this: “Джордж.” Now let us write the grandmother’s name. Here it is – in Russian it looks like this: “Бетти.” Let us write the father’s name – “Пол.” Review the names three to five times, pointing at the written words at the same time. Next, do not point at the words; you just name them, and the child points at them.

We have come to a very important part – write your student’s name in Russian. Now they can copy it on the title page of the Activity Book or write in marker on their Student’s Book Soroka. Let them enjoy the way their name looks in the Russian language.

Next, open to Page 2 of the Activity Book and start working on the exercise. Simply look at the way the book characters’ names are written in the Student’s Book and compare their writing in the Activity Book. It is not necessary to read them now. You should simply compare characters, detaching yourself from their meanings.

I want to remind you that we learn to read with the help of flash cards. We read words in their entirety or syllable-by-syllable as written on our flash cards. We read for 10 minutes in each class. We read only words we are currently learning or words our students have already learned. For example, I often start my reading class by showing the word “Mama” to my students. My American students can read this word easily since they know all the letters in this word as well as its meaning. Thus I show that reading in Russian is easy and not as scary as some people think.

In parallel with reading words on our flash cards, we do exercises that help us to learn letters and their order in the Russian alphabet. For example, there are such games as “Letters Race” and “Crocodile.” You can find instructions on how to play those games in the Teacher’s Book.

Please write your comments and questions in the comments section below.

All the best!

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That is true, your students cannot read in Russian yet, but it is not necessary. All the future exercises are geared toward them beginning to learn the Russian letters and the reading rules of the Russian language. Therefore, it is important to use common sense and what we have just learned during the lesson.

If you follow my instructions, then you know about the Oral Approach: listening – speaking – reading – writing. Reading is our third phase. By the time we start reading, students have already listened to and reviewed all of the new words. They already know these words verbally. They also know the names of heroes from the books.

You have already verbally learned everything that is written on this page. What are we doing now? You will read all the words and point at the place you are reading. Then you will read the second time, and your student will repeat after you. Previously they looked at the toys that gave them their names; now they are looking at the Russian letters and repeating the reading of the words.

It took us 10 to 12 minutes of the lesson to do all that reviewing. Let’s open Page 1 in the Student’s Book (с. 1 в Рабочей тетради) and put it aside. Now we are opening Page 1 in the Activity Book. Here it is not necessary to read. First, we just need to look at the pictures.

It was not in vain that we learned to recognize the book’s characters depicted on Page 1 of this Student’s Book (Учебник, с. 1). Now these characters appear again, but in black-and-white. You can show the characters in the Activity Book (в Рабочей тетради) and give their names. Then ask your student to do the same – show the characters and give their names. Now let us look at their names written in Russian on the right margin of the page. What is written here?

You can pretend that you are the scientists who are studying the writings of an unknown civilization. You can look at these names and come up with the idea of how to decode them. Perhaps let us just find familiar letters in the words. Are there any familiar letters? Let us see, there might be some.

In the Activity Book (в Рабочей тетради) you have a hint/clue. We know that the girl’s name is Вика, and there is a line connecting her picture with her name. Let us look at “Bика” and all the letters it contains. Where is the letter “A”? Where is the letter “K”? We are looking at the letters and pointing at them with the finger. We see the Вика is on the picture and the written word is “Вика” as well.

We have two names left. One of them is Аня. Let us see if we have the letter “a” in the beginning of the word somewhere. Here it is! Now let us look at the name Вова. The letter “a” is now the last, at the very end. In what other word is the letter “a” at the end? Correct! Here we go – we have connected all of the characters’ pictures with their names. Please note that we cannot read in Russian yet.

The next activity/task is to draw a self-portrait and write your name. Here you can write in Russian or in the language of the country you live in. Maybe your student’s name is Аня or Вика. Then you can just copy the name written in the book.

 At the very end of this lesson, there is a self-testing. Let your student open the Student’s Book (Учебник) on Page 1 and look at the picture. They need to make sure that they have done everything right and that in the Student’s Book, everything is the same as in the picture.

I think you understand the way it works now. Please write your comments if you need any help.

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