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Dilemma - I have small kids, one in 1st grade and one getting ready for kinder next year. The school year here in the US will be ending soon. We are relocating to South America this summer and 2nd grade and kinder already started last month.

Do I: A) re-enroll the 1st grader to repeat the second half of 1st grade, or B) put her in 2nd grade anyway, even though it'll be half over by the time we get there and hope she catches up, or C) enroll her in the American school which is on the same schedule as schools in the US.

Note: the American school does not have a good rep, tuition is more than twice the price of all other private schools, we speak only spanish at home and kids are already fluent so they don't need an english only school, and their summer vacation won't match up with all their cousins and friends.

Any experience with this? any and all comments welcome.

Certainly does not seem like you have any need for the American school since they are fluent.I wuold not have her repeat 1st grade.If she did not speak spanish that might be a good idea,but since she is fluent,that could end up hurting her as the stats for kids old for grade are not good when they are older ( they internalize themselves as being "dumb" and have much high instances of teen pregnancy & drop out).

Why not homeschool until you get there? If you know the school you prefer ask them for the curric. and if not just go to cosco and get one of those books "what your 2nd grader should know" which shows you what a good school would expect.

starfall is a fun thing for children of that age ( and many more fun computer learning things online for free or cds' so they learn as they have fun).

If English is their dominant language ( and it probably is if you live in the states & they are exposed to it most outside of the home) its best they learn to read in thier dominant language first.This won't affect the K child because he/she will switch to spanish dominant quickly,but might be a bit tricky for the first grader depending on where she is in her reading level.

HTH Where are you headed?

Get great books like singapore math for her age/grade ( a wonderful highly praised ,easy to do math curric they use in singapore & many homeschoolers love).

Since homeschooling is one on one,kids can go much faster than school in much less time.Average homeschool kids are usually years ahead of schooled agemates.It usually only takes an hour or two at that age to do what a school would do all day.You could start now on weekends.Do it all in Spanish as that is what she will be learning in.

There are even online schools and distant learning ( K-12/calvert etc )if you do not have that much confidence tho you will be amazed at how easy homeschooling is.Join homeschool groups online to get wonderful ideas as it is much easier than you imagine.

That way she can keep up ( and maybe even be ahead when she gets there).

Thanks for the feedback and I will look in to the home schooling option as I am reluctant to have her redo part of 1st grade. By the way, we're going to Lima, Peru.

Regarding dominant language, it has been an interesting transition. I recently noticed that when she is playing and talking to herself, she speaks in english, although she only started speaking english when she started school. She can also switch back and forth between both languages seamlessly and can even make fun of my wife’s accent when speaking english and my accent when speaking spanish.

My 4 year old son on the other hand is a different story. I used to scoff at the idea that girls advanced faster than boys, but it is so obvious. He has already learned a significant amount of english from his sister and from cartoons and he constantly mixes english and spanish in the same sentence. Sometimes I wonder if he even knows they are different languages.

Anyway, we’re looking forward to the adventure. Thanks again.

Yeah ,raising bilingual kids keeps things interesting.Will you be back? Do you want to them to remain bilingual? If you are living there for a long time,then you will have to work on keeping thier English up and maybe talk English in the home ( bring english dvd's ,music,books etc.)

I know UK families in Spain who have to contend with that and frankly sometimes the English gets really poor.So that might be something you will need to watch for.Kids learn languages really quick,but they can lose them very quickly too.They must be spoken and maintained by being around it.

Its been tricky for us because my hubby is not a dominant Spanish speaker.We did the one parent speaks english ,one speaks spanish route as well as lots of exposure to native speakers.Its normal for them to mix languages,tho I was surprized that my dd started out with much more Spanish than English even tho she was hearing much more English.( later found out this was typical as spanish is easier).I on't speak much Spanish ,so it was tricky as I had no idea what she was saying sometimes and I was the parent with her most.

She firgured it out before 2 & I won't forget that day the light bulb went off and she said " Mama says kitchen and daddy says consina".

If she is talking to herself in English it is probably her dominant language.But with so much Spanish in her background,it seems she will almost instantly become Spanish dominant in a Spanish dominant country.

My child likes to laugh at my Spanish accent as well & is always correcting me When she was a baby & toddler she REALLY hated when I tied to talk in Spanish.

My childs Spanish is the best in the family,but she will benefit greatly at being in a Spanish dominated country.As she got older my husband had to talk some to her in Englsh as he could not say the things he wanted to say to her in Spanish.

The hard part now ,will be keeping yours fluent and literate in English.So I would keep up with her english reading as well as Spanish and encourage her to keep reading in both.

Just as 2 native spanish speakers can have kids that become monolinguals here,2 UK parents in Spain can and do have kids who are monolingual in Spanish.It takes concious and continual awareness & work to keep kids fluently bilingual and biliterate.its worth the work tho because they are 2 of the most used languages on the planet and languages keeps one connected to the culture of thier ancestors.There are some great books on raising bilingual children that you probably have seen & read.

Have fun in Peru!

quote:

Originally posted by WT: There are some great books on raising bilingual children that you probably have seen & read.

Actually I haven't seen, nor read. Can you recommend any titles?

Here is a list of some:
http://learninfreedom.org/languagebooks.html

( Its also a great website for homeschooling info from a very bright father of bilingual children )

I studied them passionately when my child was younger,but my books are packed away now ( or sold..not sure as we are about to set out on long RTW trip).

My child started out as a trilingual ( chinese/english/spanish) but as we got into it I realized it was harder than we thought as I started to read more.We were going to do the chinese mostly thru school immersion as neither of us speaks mandarin.

We might pick it up again when in China & we do want to add lots in Greek & Latin,and may add French.We will see ,...my child loves languages & cultures so thats part of our reason for travel.But I also read about a family who learned several different languages which the kids picked up quickly in school,but all of them lost them just as quickly when they moved.

So there is lots of interesting tidbits on how language & the brain works.A native Spanish speaker who studied law in UK will not be able to converse about law in Spanish..interesting things like that.How it goes in and what one dreams in.My expat friend here can hardly speak her native tonque now because she has lived in the states so long & her family laughs at her heavy american accent in her native tongue that she only spoke upto 20.A native Spanish speaking friend from columbia (who was my childs tutor) made her son here talk to her about his english classes in english so that he would know teh spanish words as he was learning it.

Saunders book is particularly interesting because they were a monolingual english speaking family for generations,in an english dominated country who raised bilingual children.The father studied in college & they did take trips to Germany etc.

we have some of those disadvantages as my husband was not raised as a bilingual even tho both parents were & never spoke english until they went to school ( & have slight accents).Luckily the grandmother would only speak spanish,but it is definately not my husbands dominant language & never has been but he is fluent ,just not dominant as english is MUCH easier for him.

I know monoligual english speakers who are raising (with great effort) bilingual kids by nannies only speaking spanish & immersion schools & trips to spanish speaking countries.So it can be done.

But I also know way to many kids raised in bilingual or trilingual homes who are only monolingual or receptive at best.It takes work to keep up both languages.My niece started out bilingual as her mother is from europe,but they found it too hard even tho the grandparents on that side do not even speak english.( And they homeschool!).

reading can be a problem when mixing languages for bilingual kids,but thats more with parents who do not put the time into the child (often the type who are just with survival issues like poor immigrant children).There is much less problem with bilingual children with educated parents who put effort into the challenges.

I have read that its best to make sure a child is reading well in the dominant language before learning to read in the second,so you might want to check that out depending where your child is in reading.We have delayed teaching reading to my bilingual child in spanish yet because of this,but will start with this trip.

In the long run it is a great gift,but it definately takes work to keep both strong & ultimately we all tend to have one more domiant than the other at any given time.The one you are using most & hearing most is usually the dominant language.Usually one dreams in the dominant language & usually thinks in the dominant language.

Since your children have had so much more exposure to Spanish thus far , i would think your challenge will be in keeping the english and growing it while in Peru.If they are ever coming back here they will need that.Make sure the spend time with the english speaking relatives ( like summers or such) & keep up reading in it,talking in it and exposure.

hope that helps.

A few thoughts:
Homeschool is great and works really well, but she will pick up Spanish faster in the school.

Choices #1 or #2 could go either way because you don't know yet where they'll be in the school. Are they ahead of us or behind us, or about the same? You'd probably have to go talk to them to get an idea of where she's at in relation to the school. They might want her to repeat the end of first grade just to catch up on language skills.

I would not send her to the American school. She won't learn the language, which is a big part of her education, and you say it's not a good school. Those are good enough reasons right there. The expense clinches it.

quote:

Homeschool is great and works really well, but she will pick up Spanish faster in the school.

Just to clarify, I was ( and I think we were) talking about homeschooling ( & a bit of afterschooling & weekend schooling) from now until she gets to the local Spanish school.The whole idea was to help her with the gap so there would be less need to have her have to catch up due to the time differences between when her school ends,that one begins and she gets there.

I certainly agree with you that she will pick up the Spanish faster in the school (tho it seems she is already very fluent) and that one needs to know what there curric. entails.Even in this country ( in one little area) there can be extreme differences on what is expected in a grade.

If they plan on returning to this country, part time homeschooling added to the local Spanish school will also be valuable to keep up with her reading in English and the things she would need to know here in school.( Especially since she has had more exposure to Spanish than English thus far in her young life).Children learn languages fast but can also loose them fast if they are not maintained.

This is a big problem with UK kids that move to Spain & do primary school there & then try to go back for higher grades and have lots of problems.A child who had almost no exposure to English except school ( K & 1st) is even in mor danger of losing the English in a Spanish dominant country.

Homeschooled kids are usually far advanced of schooled kids and spend much less time doing "schooling" ( usually no more than 2 or 3 hrs a day) because no time is needed for "crowd control" and one size fits all learning.So a few simple things like singapore math,history of the world,five in a row ,what your child needs to know in _ grade,educational CD's and dvd's in English in spare time while there will help keep her current in both curric.'s and fluently bilingual.That way her options are open if things ever change.

BTW just found out the post office has a cheap method to ship books overseas by boat ( its great for europe...not sure about Peru.)

I am just a big believer that we are all fully responsible for our childrens education ( I am not big on trusting schools which usually cater to the lowest denominator) whether we homeschool or not and bilingual kids have very particular needs.Probably even trickier when one is dealing with parents from 2 different countries.

Oh,another cool thing for the OP ,I think most of the learning in a grade at this age..happens from second semester start to end of school.The first half seems to be used mostly in getting them into a routine of the current teacher & expectations of class protocal.

All the other kids will be all lined up with the routine when they arrive...so it will be easy for her ( both kids) to line up with it.Ofcourse ,this would not apply if the kids all have the same teacher and classmates for all of elementary which is the case in some countries.But if it is similar to hear...much of the fall is "crowd control " stuff & then holidays.

quote:

Oh,another cool thing for the OP ,I think most of the learning in a grade at this age..happens from second semester start to end of school.The first half seems to be used mostly in getting them into a routine of the current teacher & expectations of class protocal.

Yeah, agreed, but then you can just drop off the last 2 months of school too, because of the testing, and then once that's over, learning is out the door. I'm getting an interesting perspective here, because we homeschooled for 5 years, then the girls went back to school, then I got a job substitute teaching. I think of it as spying.

And yes, they are very much ahead of their classmates, and that was putting in minimal effort on our part. We mainly worked on math and spelling, did very few worksheets, and read a lot--both to ourselves and me reading aloud to them. And lots of conversation--kids can learn a lot that way. I hate, hate, hate worksheets, and I believe that is the thing that turns kids off to school the most. They are brain deadening. That said, a few well placed worksheets would be beneficial, but they can be overdone, and if the schools didn't have worksheets they wouldn't be able to function. Oh yes, and penpals were all we did for writing, but the girls writing skills were quite advanced for their grade, so I have stopped feeling guilty.

But WT, I stand corrected for not reading the original post very well--it does say she is fluent in Spanish--that's what I get for barely skimming, then jumping in with my 2 cents. So ditto on the homeschool til you get there--it's better to be ahead than behind, and will serve well for a "Just in case" scenario. Extra knowledge is never wasted. Have fun in Peru--I've never been, but it sounds wonderful.