"Beth Kevles" wrote in message
...
We have our kids in a 1-way immersion program (Spanish, you must already
speak fluent English to enter). I don't really know how the two kinds
of programs compare. I DO know that kids with two languages often lag
until about 3rd grade, but then pull ahead of their peers not only in
lanugage, but in mathematics. (I read one study; it was SES corrected.)

I also know that kids who don't study their first language in an
academic fashion in elementary school (as is the case with many native
Spanish speakers in our area) can't keep up with the immersion kids in
Spanish when they hit middle school. You'll also notice that many
colleges now offer courses in academic Spanish for native speakers of
the language who don't have a background in reading and writing
academically in Spanish. (I saw the Yale book of courses, recently, and
it had a series of such classes for native Spanish speakers who couldn't
yet take regular Spanish literature courses.)

I hope this helps.

Yes, it's very insightful. How much time is spent out of your child's
school day learning Spanish? Do you see his English reading and writing
skills suffering at all? I know they say kids with two languages eventually
pull ahead, but do they mean only kids who are bilingual because their
family speaks a different language or are they referring to the kids in the
immersion programs? I understand that kids from bilingual families can do
quite well, but those kids are schooled 100% in English. I'm wondering
about kids who only spend 50% of their time being schooled in English.