Editor´s note: This article was originally published on January 27, 2010. Today we welcome a new and amazing expert to our already great Ask an Expert panel. We count ourselves lucky to be able to wrangle Dr. Naomi Steiner, most well known as the author of the very useful book 7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child. To find out more about Naomi Steiner and to send her, or any of our experts, your questions please click here. Today´s questionRead More ...
“My son is enrolled in a Spanish immersion elementary school. This is our first year and he is in first grade. Prior to this, he had very limited Spanish language exposure. He is loving it and we are happy with his acceptance with the new environment and routine. Neither my husband or I speak or read Spanish. How can we foster his learning to read Spanish at home? I go to the library and am overwhelmed with all the choicesRead More ...
“Hola! My husband and I have only spoken in Spanish to our 3 year old daughter Carolina. She is used to only watching Spanish media (TV, videos, books, music, etc.) and is spoken to only in Spanish by all family members. To date, she does not speak or understand English but is very articulate in Spanish. I’ve submitted questions to the experts before which have been fortunately answered and their responses have encouraged me to continue to speak only inRead More ...
The following question was sent by Liz Guzman. You can also send your question to the Experts by clicking here. My son has had speech therapy since he was 3 and was recently “diagnosed” by the school psychologist as having PDD-NOS. He was accepted in a dual language program and is mostly an English speaker. My question is, being in this program would it be beneficial or detrimental to his learning? I was told like most people that I wasRead More ...
This post was originally published on Aug. 31, 2009. This week’s Ask an Expert question was sent by Donna, mother of three. “I have 3 children. The older 2 who are 12 and 9 mostly speak and understand English. We are trying to speak only Spanish to the baby who is 2 months old. What can we do to be sure that the baby speaks only Spanish first if her siblings are speaking to her in English?” Dear Donna, IfRead More ...
“I am writing to get advice. We are a English speaking family. I do not speak Spanish. My child, Ronnie started at a bilingual school last year in the 1st grade. The school teaches a dual language model immersion program for Spanish. My son has expressed to me he does not like Spanish but likes the school otherwise. I have hired tutors to help Ronnie but it still has not built his confidence in Spanish. I want him to toRead More ...
My 5 y/o daughter has been doing great in both languages. Both parents are native Spanish speakers so it hasn’t been ‘so’ hard to keep her Spanish active: we only speak Spanish at home. Last year, in PreK, she had Spanish class once a week and complained of getting bored during that class. Now in Kindergarten, she is dreading going to Spanish class even more. I spoke with the Spanish teacher and expressed my concern, but her response was thatRead More ...
Today´s question was sent to our experts by Joe Rosati. You, too, can have your question regarding raising a bilingual and/or bicultural child answered by one of the experts on our panel. My son is entering the 3rd grade of his Dual Language program. The school has three teachers for the program at 3rd grade, but only one for 4th grade and has suggested they might have a class size of 31 students for 4th grade. This sounds like tooRead More ...
