learning

Yesterday we talked about how important it is to keep your child’s mind active over the summer months. While there are many ways that you can keep kids busy right at home – one popular option is summer camp. Summer camps range from free and inexpensive to costly; some are sleep away camps and others are day or half-day camps. You can choose a local camp or one as far away as Costa Rica or Spain. To keep your bilingualRead More ...

They say that once you learn to ride a bicycle, you never forget – but is it true? Do we actually retain all skills and knowledge once learned? The truth is a skill usually must be consistently practiced or it can be lost, at least partially. This is especially evident in school children who go on summer break. At the start of each school year, precious weeks are wasted in the classroom as teachers try to get the children backRead More ...

For months I’ve been trying to figure out how I would go about teaching my daughter, Vanessa, how to read in Spanish. I know she’s been ready to learn for at least six months, but I guess I’ve been the one who wasn’t ready. My original thought was that I’d teach her how to read in Spanish before she entered Kindergarten in the Fall. Once there, she’d just follow along with the rest of the kids in her class andRead More ...

A friend of mine who is a Spanish teacher at a local elementary school said something over the weekend that got me thinking about whether or not everybody is capable of learning a new language. She said that in her years as a teacher, she’s seen with her own two eyes how some children struggle to learn Spanish while others pick it up with unbelievable ease. The most interesting part is that, some times, the students who struggle are the ones you’d least expect: theRead More ...

My four-year-old daughter, Vanessa, just finished two weeks of an immersion language summer camp…in FRENCH! I’ve been wanting her to go there since last summer, but things didn’t really work out the way I’d plan them and so we had to wait until this year. And, I’m actually glad we did! French is my third language and I’ve spoken to Vanessa in French in the past although not in a consistent or structured way. In fact, before her brother wasRead More ...