Thread: dual immersion
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Old October 8th 03, 12:18 AM
Beth Kevles
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Default dual immersion


In response to your questions:

----------------- the questions ---------------
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.

--------------------------- end questions ---------------

My kids are in school for 6 1/2 hours each weekday. Of that time, about
four hours are spent exclusively in Spanish. (The others include lunch,
recess, English (starting in 2nd grade -- age 8) and specialists (art,
music, library ...).)

We work with the kids on reading and writing at home. Those English
language skills haven't suffered at all. I did notice that some of the
kids in my older child's class had trouble learning to read in English
(Spanish is much easier, after all) but ALL were fluent readers by the
end of 2nd grade.

The study, as I recall, indicated that children in immersion programs
lagged behind their peers in **their native language** until 3rd grade.
provided that they received SOME academic instruction in their native
language, they caught up with their peers during the 3rd grade year and
surpassed them soon thereafter. An hour a day seems to be sufficient
(not from the study, but based on my observation of my older child's
class).

I think if you go to the AskERIC web site you may find some studies on
the 2-language topic. If you can't find them doing a search of the
database, don't hesitate to submit a question. The specialists there
are very helpful, and it's all FREE.

--Beth Kevles

http://web.mit.edu/kevles/www/nomilk.html -- a page for the milk-allergic
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