Dual-Language

Although I can imagine all of the wonderful things this will give your child, I'd like to speak as a middle school English teacher on the subject.
Before I had my son, I taught in a district with a wonderful French immersion program in grades K-5. The kids came to me in 7th grade as fluent French and English speakers, but 95% of the time their grammar, spelling, and sentence structure was just awful. Because we were beyond those basic lessons, we did not spend much time reviewing phonics or sentence make up, and often the French immersion kids were lost. They'd mix up French phonic sounds and word placement, and were therefore behind everyone else in all writing areas. I had a tutoring group after school, and the majority of those kids were FI.

So~~~~I think it can be a wonderful thing, as long as their basic English skills are taught heavily as well (and this might have to happen at home).

Good luck!

Hi Julie
I don't know much about the program, however I work for a close school district, and was talking the the Director of Bilingual Ed. (at my district) about the program. She started a dual-language program at another school district up north - and had NOTHING but good things to say about a dual-lanugage program.

I called this summer to try to get my kids added to the wait list - but they wouldn't take them. I have a son that will go into K next fall, and another the following fall. My daughter started K the year before the dual language program was available, so she missed out!

As I understand it, you have to go through an interview process, and your child is interviewed as well. Obviously, since it is 80% Spanish speaking - they are looking for 80% of the class to be native Spanish speaking....so that really limits the native English speaking kids.

I'll be adding my boys to the wait list as soon as I can - I think it is of great benefit to be fluent in 2 languages, which is what the kids that come out that program are.

You know, the kids remain in the same class all through 5th grade, and get mainstreamed through recess, lunch and field trips - but the kids they start in K with, are the same ones that they have in their class for the next 5 years.

Maybe our kids will end up in the program! Good luck,
T.

I was interested in getting my 5 year old son into the program at Lakewood Creek Elementary in Montgomery. I had gone to 2 of the informational meetings and decided that it wasn't going to be a program that would work for our family.
I think what I understood was that they wanted to have an equal amount of english speaking and spanish speaking kids in the class.
My 5 year old son is a smart individual and I have all the confidence in the world in him, but after the 2nd meeting I had made my final decision.
I wasn't happy about the class being in the the afternoon as I feel that kids learn much better in the morning. Lakewood Creek Elementary is the grade school in our neighborhood, but being involved in this program did not guarantee that this would be our home school. I thought about friendships that he would make and that they might be friends on the other side of town...didn't think that sounded like the best idea.
The program said that the english speaking kids would eventually catch up to their english speaking peers and I didn't want to take that chance. One final thing that helped to make our decision was that it would take lots of parent commitment...They are learning spanish at school, but the parents would need to do the teaching of the english. I have 3 kids and I just didn't think I had the energy. Yes, we read to kids everyday and we practice writing...like any normal parent would, but I need to spend time with all my children.
In closing, the program sounded wonderful, but it just wasn't for us. I am confident that my son will learn another language when he has mastered the english lang.