Who is on your diversity team?

By Karen Nemeth, Ed.M.

I think every preschool program should have a diversity team.  Bring together staff, parents, and members of your community that speak the languages of the children in your classrooms so they can provide help and support in a variety of ways.  Whether you have a very formal role for them to play or a loose, informal get together from time to time, you will find that the benefits of this type of committee will grow and grow.

For example, they can help you by reading translations of school materials to be sure the language is appropriate for the children and families you serve, they can help you find resources in the languages you need, they can serve as volunteers with the children or behind the scenes, and they can welcome new families to your program.  Here is a list of organizations that come up in my presentations.  Feel free to submit additions for this list.  I’ve started by giving some examples of the kind of help these groups can provide, but I’m leaving it up to you to fill in the success stories! Comment here or email to info@languagecastle.com

(two new ideas that came up in today’s presentation:  Embassies and organizations that support international adoptions)

Letter to Administrators about Dual Language Learners in Preschool

(a template you can use – by Karen Nemeth)

Dear [Administrator]:

I appreciate the opportunity to work with you on this most important task: teaching preschool children who come from different language background.  We both know that I can only be a truly effective teacher for these children if I have your full support.  Here are some things I want you to know:

1. Three and four year old children are at a different stage of cognitive development than children five and older (though many fives are more like fours than like sixes).  Most of what we know works in teaching older ELLs is all wrong for preschool.
2. I want the help of our district ESL specialists but they may have had no coursework or training in the learning needs of preschool DLLs.  We need you to help us work together effectively by providing professional development.  Here is a book that will help:  Many Languages, One Classroom by Karen Nemeth.
3. When my students are playing, their brains are engaged in the most effective learning.  Let’s not hold them back by interrupting play for structured lessons because research has shown that lessons are less likely to result in positive outcomes than play based learning.
4. Preschool children are notoriously bad test takers.  I need training, time and support to use other kinds of assessment such as portfolios and observations.
5. I need fewer kits and more real items to help my students build on prior knowledge and prepare to make generalizations of the concepts learned in my classroom.
6. I need materials, especially books, in the languages of each and every child in my classroom – and authentic materials that reflect their cultures.
7. Many times administrators jump to conclusions about the effectiveness of programs that offer home language support in the early years.  I need you to remember that the preponderance of research clearly states that home language support is necessary, but programs with too-big class sizes, inadequate supplies, or improperly prepared teachers are not likely to succeed even if they do try to offer bilingual supports.
8. To be clear, we have to share the policy that it is our responsibility to help preschool children continue to learn their home language and to learn IN their home language while we also scaffold their learning of English.
9. I need to spend time learning the home languages of the children in my class each year.  I need your support so I can purchase software or take classes or practice with my colleagues.
10. I need parents to be more involved in the classroom and to do more at home to support home language development.  I need you to take the lead in setting the tone and vision of our school so that everyone clearly knows support for home language is central to all of our work.  Here’s an article by Linda Espinosa that will help.

If we work together to make these things happen, there is no question that outcomes for our children will improve and the success of our school will shine.

Thank you,

Your dedicated teacher

“Rules” for Teaching English/Dual Language Learners in Preschool?? A Conversation Starter

by Karen Nemeth

People are often asking me to just tell them the “rules” for teaching dual language learners in preschool.  They seem disappointed when I answer, “It depends!”.   Whether you say English language learners (ELLs) or dual language learners (DLLs), they are all children who come from families that speak languages other than English.  There’s no one recipe for success – it depends on the mix of children you have, the skills of your staff, the format of your curriculum, and the resources available to you.  But, there are some principles that can function as rules – so I am sharing my views here.  This is not meant to be a definitive guide – it is meant to be a starting point to get people talking.  Please share your thoughts and suggestions via comments to the blog or email to me at info@languagecastle.net.  Let’s get this conversation started!

#1 First, and above all, preschool needs to be high quality.  This includes small class sizes, well-prepared teacher, comprehensive curriculum that is developmentally appropriate, and well-stocked classroom.  A low quality program that happens to have a bilingual teacher is still a low quality program.

#2  Well prepared teachers make a difference in child outcomes.  DLLs- and all children -  need teachers who provide rich, engaging, stimulating, individualized and challenging language experiences, and who understand the value of  connected, nurturing teacher-child interactions. If given the choice between a really great teacher that does not speak my child’s language or a teacher who is not well prepared or not motivated to connect with young children but does speak our language, I’d choose the former.  The great teacher can learn my child’s language and help parents extend learning at home.

#3  Every child must be read to at least once a day in English and at least once a day in their home language.  Somehow.  I think this is more important than two-step table sanitization or learning how to stand in line.

#4  If  you have bilingual staff, they should provide a flexible balance of home language and English every day, depending on the set-up of the program and the needs of the children.  I believe any range of 90% home language/ 10% English to a 50/50 split would be best.  Less than 50% home language is not ideal, but some is better than none.  There is no research evidence that more time spent on English in preschool will result in better academic outcomes.

#5  Children in dual language programs should not go an entire day without having a chance to practice and chat in their home language.  There is no research basis for prohibiting young children from using their home language on any given day.  Preschool is not just a language factory – it should be a wonderful, supportive, responsive, nurturing place that happens to support language and literacy development.

#6  All the languages of the classroom must have equal status.  There should be no first class and second class when it comes to languages.  If the teacher speaks one language and the assistant speaks another, they should both use their languages for fun, for learning, and for practical needs equally.  We don’t want to see one language used as the teaching language and the other as the ‘behavior management’ or ‘toileting’ language!

#7 Volunteers that speak the languages in your classrooms can be a big help – but it is important to provide them with training so they can be effective language models and conversationalists with young children.

#8  If a teacher encounters a child that speaks a language he or she does not, the teacher must learn at least a few words in that language, provide plenty of books and supplies that match the languages and cultures of the children, and he or she must develop their skills for nonverbal communications to augment their oral language interactions with the child.

#9  Address all language policy and planning based on the understanding that children need more than four years to become fully, academically fluent in their second language.  This means they need to continue learning their home language and learning in their home language in order to build on prior learning and concept development throughout the preschool years.

#10  When parents resist home language instruction, help them understand that you share their desire to prepare their child for success in English – and the best way to make that happen is to support the home language in the early years.  Not only is this key to later school success, but is also critical to strengthening that all-important family bond.

#11  All preschool teachers need to understand how language develops. With a better understanding of how the brain processes language, teachers will not make the mistake of trying to give language lessons to preschool children.  For children under the age of six, teachers should not be teaching language – they should be teaching children.  Especially in the early years, language and vocabulary must not, and can not, be separated from meaning, function and concept learning.

#12  There’s a good reason why experts advise using as many real, authentic, recognizable items as possible when teaching young DLLs.  You can teach sorting with socks just as well as you can with plastic shapes, but the socks build on prior knowledge, evoke conversation, build real functional vocabulary, stimulate learning that is generalizable, and provide experiences the child can duplicate at home.  That’s a lot to gain from socks! Added bonus – when you use materials in school that parents have at home, more likely they will feel more in touch with what their child is learning at school and can do it at home too.

#13  Now, more than ever, teachers need to plan for extended projects or true themes that extend over several or many days.  Choppy, piecemeal programs are not best for any child, and even worse for dual language learners.  For children who are trying to make sense out of a new language while continuing to learn in their home language, this becomes a crucial issue. Children need time, repetition, and practice in a variety of contexts to fine-tune their concept and vocabulary learning.

Rule #14  Go back and read rules 1 – 13.  If you find anything in any one of those rules that is not good for children in a monolingual program, I welcome you to bring it to my attention.  For me, rule #14 is the conclusion:  any strategy that works well for young children who are dual language learners is also a strategy that will support the very best in preschool teaching practices, anywhere, with any language.

By:  Karen Nemeth

The debate in Illinois about whether bilingual education should be required for preschool shows the growing level attention being paid to how we should meet the needs of young children from different language backgrounds (via Edweek http://bit.ly/dhxA2n ). Unfortunately, I think the question being debated is off track. Determining a specific type of program for children who have limited English experience is a question for older grades – for children who are at a different level of cognitive development. Preschool children must not be treated like small versions of elementary school students, especially when it comes to language development! All children in the preschool years are at some stage of developing language – some in one, some in two or more languages. The focus has to be on high quality language input and teacher-child interactions.

When educational leaders place too much emphasis on choosing a program, they have lost sight of what is needed to meet the needs of the actual children. High quality bilingual preschool programs (whether they follow dual language immersion or transitional bilingual models) depend on high quality teachers who are fully bilingual AND fully trained in the unique practices of preschool education. AND – this is the tricky part – they have to be bilingual in the actual languages of the actual children they are to teach!! Keep in mind that most university bilingual and ESL education programs today provide zero coursework on the language development needs of children under the age of five.

Even if a school was able to find and hire fully qualified, fully bilingual early childhood teachers, the numbers always work against them. A law requiring bilingual “program” puts pressure on the school to make things happen without proper staff or resources. What if you have enough qualified teachers for two classes of 20 children each, but 45 children are determined to need that service? What if the city has 20 Spanish-speaking children but they are spread out, two or three at each elementary school all over the city? And, most importantly, what happens when everyone wakes up and realizes there are very few school districts in this country that have young children who speak only English and one other language like Spanish? The day a school establishes a lovely bilingual program to serve the Spanish-speaking children in their district might be the day a Somali or Korean or Polish family arrives to register their children. What then?

According to the most recent report on the Illinois Board of Education Website, the state’s schools serve children who speak 139 different native languages, and while Spanish is spoken by 81% of them, that still means that nearly one out of every five dual language learners in the state speaks a language that is not English or Spanish.

My recommendation for policy makers, teacher educators, and educational leaders is that we must work harder on preparing all preschool teachers to meet the needs of children who come to their classrooms with different language backgrounds and abilities. They are not going to show up in neat packages of even numbers in one or two languages for which you magically have qualified bilingual teachers ready to go. And preschool children can’t afford to wait a year or two while you try to recruit teachers who are bilingual in all of the languages that present themselves. Just as we are working harder to prepare teachers to provide programs that include children with special needs, we also must prepare teachers to support all kinds of learning differences in the same preschool classroom. Most certainly, this approach depends on a commitment to keep teachers well-supported and to keep class sizes at a maximum of 20 (lower is better). Within the context of a high quality preschool curriculum, well-prepared teachers need to do what they do best, and offer as much support in each child’s home language as they can. If the teacher is bilingual, he or she needs specific training on how to use two languages with young children at various stages along the language development continuum. And, according to research (as clearly emphasized by Linda Espinosa) young children need to continue learning and learning in their home language at least through kindergarten and first grade.

I believe the best program for young dual language learners is a high quality general education preschool curriculum with excellent teacher-child interactions, lower class-sizes, rich language input in both English and their home language using a combination of developmentally appropriate adaptations of ESL and bilingual education teaching methods.

New Jersey has comprehensive guidance for supporting dual language learners (pages 35-40 here: http://www.nj.gov/education/ece/dap/impguidelines.pdf) which I helped to write when I served as a specialist in the NJDOE Office of Preschool Education. We collaborated with the state bilingual education staff to ensure that this guidance reflected Developmentally Appropriate Practice and remained in compliance with state and federal regulations regarding bilingual education. You can also find lots of teaching strategies in my book, Many Languages, One Classroom.

If you have comments or questions and have trouble leaving them on this site – feel free to email info@languagecastle.com

By Karen Nemeth, Ed.M.

I recently visited a childcare center that had five preschool classrooms. There were children who spoke eight different languages and adults who spoke only three of those languages. The director had done plenty of reading of about the need to support home language development in young children. In her view, this was ‘easier read than done’. She, and her teachers, wanted to know how they could possibly support home language learning in these complicated circumstances. That’s a question I’ve been asked countless times. Here’s a piece of the answer.

The United States has a well-established system in place for supporting bilingual children in elementary and secondary schools. There are Bilingual Education specialists and English as a Second Language specialists, and world language teachers. Each one has their own clear role and requirements. This system falls short because virtually none of the college programs that train these specialists ever address the learning needs of children under the age of five. Preschool teachers need to find their own way as they are encountering more and more children from different language backgrounds in their classrooms.

Recent reports show that nearly 25% of our current five-and-under population comes from immigrant families. I hear from schools that have their first non-English speaker ever enrolled this year as well as programs that intentionally attract a majority of bilingual children. In most cases, the number of bilingual staff members does not quite match the language needs of the children. The best way to prepare teachers to be successful with diverse children is to help them bring together some of the best strategies from bilingual education, ESL, and world languages teachers.

The key is to focus on high quality, developmentally appropriate early childhood practices and enhance them with these additional strategies. Turns out this is not a whole new curriculum to add to the day – it’s a natural adaptation of what good preschool teachers know already. When the teacher knows some of the child’s home language, she should use it to engage in nurturing, engaging conversations with the child (even if she feels a bit awkward) just as we would see in an older bilingual education class. When the teacher does not know the child’s language, she can support his learning by using enhanced gestures, repetition, props, and pictures to build understanding as we’d see in a typical ESL program. Using a world languages approach helps all the children in the class learn each others’ languages so they can get along and learn from each other.

I discussed this with my colleague, Ana Lomba (www.analomba.com) . We marveled at our different our professional paths. She focuses on teaching foreign language to young English-speaking children while I train early childhood teachers to work with English language learners. We’ve had different education and training, belong to different professional organizations, and yet our message is almost always the same! Don’t worry about separations and distinctions. Just throw it all into the educational blender! Use whatever strategy seems best with each individual child using the resources you have in the context of your curriculum. Trust your best early childhood instincts and don’t be afraid to reach out and collaborate!

For more early childhood language learning strategies, visit www.languagecastle.com

By Karen Nemeth, Ed.M.

If you are reading this, you must be interested in early childhood education.  Now, here’s the question at the core of this post:  “Have you given any thought to the children who, for one reason or another, will not be able to attend a preschool program?” There’s an awful lot of talk about early childhood education these days, much of it coming from President Obama and Education Secretary Duncan.  Politicians are talking about it, as are business leaders and economists. Millions upon millions of Federal and state funding dollars are being spent for high quality early childhood programs such as Head Start, Early Head Start and universal preschool.  Great minds are hard at work deciding exactly what the best possible preschool program should look like.  But a preschool program is only effective for the children who show up.

What if the children who don’t show up are the ones who need high quality early learning experiences the most?  My primary professional focus is on children who speak languages other than English.  Their needs are more complex than non-immigrant English speakers, and K-12 schools are still struggling with the challenge of how to teach them.   A lot is riding on their ability to be ready for school.   That means a lot is riding on our expert ability to design high quality learning supports that truly fulfill the goal of preparing all children to be ready for school.

When I worked at the NJ Department of Education, I was struck by the fact that millions of dollars are spent on developing and improving high quality preschool programs.  Still, in most funded districts, 10% or more of the children who needed preschool most were not attending.  At that rate, how can we call it ‘universal preK’?.   Who are the children that are not participating in free high quality preschool?  On a national level, The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) suggests an answer, “…children from immigrant families accounted for 24 percent of the preschool-age population. Although 1.9 million preschool-age children in immigrant families attended an early education program, another 1.3 million were not enrolled.”  (http://www.clasp.org/issues/topic?type=child_care_and_early_education&topic=0009).

Getting up early, getting dressed and ready, and transporting young children to a program every day is just not workable for many families.  Does that mean we don’t have to give their children a better shot a success?  If their children enter school with little or no preparation, increased risk factors, and the added challenge of a language barrier, they might be more likely to need costly additional services as they progress through the grades.  I guess it’s hard for me to see the point in investing so many millions of dollars on only one type of out-of-home program while we remain unwilling to invest a small portion of that money to bring services to wherever the children might be.   Really, we’re either going to address the achievement gap or we’re not.  I don’t think we can find a dignified way to say our goal is to ‘sort of address the achievement gap.’

At Newamerica.net, Sara Mead posted some interesting findings in her October 1 blog,  “A Closer Look at Stay-at-Home Moms”.  Based on a recent US Census report, “About 5.6 million American women — about one out of every four mothers with children under age 15 — were stay-at-home moms in 2007. Not surprisingly, stay-at-home moms were more likely to have younger children—and to be younger themselves — than non-stay-at home moms. They are also disproportionately Hispanic, foreign-born, and have less education, compared to all mothers.”  We have to realize that children who are missing out on high quality preschool program are not children with advantages.  In fact, they may have even more complications.

As my colleague, Marcela Summerville (PreKlanguages) said in a twitter exchange, she does volunteer work with Mexican immigrants – and many of them are afraid to send their children to free preschool because they don’t want to reveal their immigrant status.   As I’ve been doing presentations about supporting young dual and English language learners across the country, I heard a number of other obstacles that keep families from enrolling in preschool.  One of the most common concerns is that families who speak little or no English will not be able to access information about the programs in the first place.  While I applaud the efforts of many programs to provide information in English and Spanish, and sometimes in other prominent languages, that still doesn’t help the few families who speak isolated or indigenous languages.  The flip side of this issue is that a program that only advertises in a language you and your child do not speak does not seem like the most hospitable place.  Furthermore, the idea of signing your “baby” up for school before the age of six is not common in some cultures.   Still another factor is how frequently many families move around, particularly when they are under economic stress.  Understanding what is keeping some preschool age children home will go a long way toward improving attendance rate.  Yet, there will always be children who are isolated or suffering or needy or perfectly ordinary who just do not get signed up for preschool.

In my comments to Sara Mead’s October 1 blog, I said

“We persist in using the term ‘universal pre-K’ to refer to services provided not to all, but only to most young children in the coverage area. We are educators and we should know the difference between ‘most’ and ‘all’ – especially when it comes to spending millions of taxpayer dollars to reduce achievement gaps in disadvantaged areas. I believe we got too caught up in advocating for high quality preschool programs when we should have been focusing on meeting the needs of preschool children. If you really stop to think about it, anyone can come up with a list of valid reasons why a five day, 8:00 – 3:00 schedule may be unworkable for some families. I’ve heard, “The program is too far and I don’t have transportation,” “I’m disabled and can’t get my kids out on time every morning,” “I’m worried about our immigration status,” “I work odd hours and can’t stick to that schedule with my kids,” “I work two jobs as it is and the school keeps putting more requirements on me,” or “I hated school when I was young and I don’t want to get involved there now.” So, my question is this: should we devote our expertise and resources to a plan that considers children in these circumstances to be expendable? I hope the census report on stay-at-home moms will call attention to the fact that some important at-risk children are being overlooked. We can’t expect high quality preschool to work its magic unless we are willing to adapt the program to fit the needs of every family who needs it. When states begin to shift their focus to giving every disadvantaged child an opportunity to prepare for school, we will see truly mixed delivery models that include school based programs partnering with Head Start, child care centers, family child care, kinship care and home visits for stay-at-home moms.”

There are a number of wonderful models that are broadening the scope of early childhood education through flexible programs, family literacy initiatives and strengthening families approaches (I’ll elaborate on solutions in my next post).  This isn’t new – it’s just not big enough yet.  More resources and attention than ever before are being devoted to the critical role of early childhood education in developing our ‘human capital’ and preparing our citizens of the future.  Let’s make it our goal to provide high quality early learning experiences for ALL children… and this time, let’s act like we mean it!

By Karen Nemeth, Ed.M.

My last blog, “Meeting the Early Learning Needs of ALL Children  – Not Just the Ones Who Show Up”, generated some important questions from readers, and I promised some answers.  How can states and districts accomplish the goal of providing high quality preschool education to all, when some simply will not or can not participate in a full time, out of home program?  Does high quality early childhood education have to be an all or nothing question?  What happens when the children who don’t enroll in preschool programs are the ones who need support the most – such as children from struggling families or new immigrant families?  Here are some possibilities to get the discussion started.

Public libraries:  Marcela Summerville, of www.spanishworkshopforchildren.com, works with families who are reluctant to register their children for preschool.  She suggests that public libraries could step up their efforts to provide stronger programs for young learners to help them prepare for kindergarten.  I would add that a true collaboration between the library and the school district would enable both resources to help each other, match curriculum and share professional development.  Once families become comfortable with a library based program, they might be more willing to try the full time program at school.

Enhanced outreach:  When I ask preschool programs what they’re doing to attract families who speak other languages, the often tell me they translate some of their materials into Spanish – and maybe one other language.  In the article, New Resource Provides Data On Young Children Of Immigrants , CLASP suggests that “states can increase action to ensure that immigrant families with young children are informed of and have access to high-quality early education”.  The problem is some parents are not fully literate even in their home language.  Judie Haynes, of www.everythingesl.net, says programs need to think of ways to connect with families that don’t depend on print media.  I’ve known programs that had great success by sending pairs of bilingual staff members – teachers or social workers – to knock on doors in the neighborhood.  The Harlem Children’s Zone is one example of this type of program.

Public-private partnerships:  The broader the net, the greater the catch.  Ideally, every organization that works with families in a given area should be prepared to connect young children with the best possible early learning experiences that will meet the needs of the family.  Pre-K Now offers an impressive menu of possibilities here http://www.preknow.org/community/partnerships.cfm .

Home visiting programs:  You know, when my budget gets tight, I don’t stop buying food – I just try to get more for my money.  Funny how that logic seems to be missing from budget discussions in many states right now.   We know that investing in early childhood education is a sound long economic plan.  If states can’t afford the most ambitious plan, could they please consider that they can still reach thousands and thousands of high-needs youngsters through less expensive home visiting programs designed to help parents excel as their child’s first teacher?  The Chicago Tribune carried a nice story about one such program.  Check your state listings for Children’s Trust organizations and Early Head Start programs that provide home visiting services.  Are they collaborating with publicly funded preschool in your area?

As I’ve said before, there are ways to address the issue of gaps in early childhood education services.  We need to work harder to assess those gaps – as Lisa Guernsey at New America Foundation suggests.  Then we need to get serious about our united commitment to reach out to all children – especially the ones who need us most.

By Karen Nemeth

I blogged about my concern that high quality preschool is failing to reach some of the neediest children who can’t make it to a program every day. My main emphasis is always about how these issues and solutions will affect children from different language backgrounds. Then, I posted several resources and solutions to that problem. Now I have two more important ideas to share with you and I invite you to add to the discussion. Registering for WordPress is no big deal. The more resources we have to share, the more successful we can be in helping children from struggling families access the full benefit of services that will give them the best possible start in education and in life.

Here’s an excellent model described by Tammy DiBartolo, Youth Services Manager at the Rapides Parish Library in Alexandria, LA. Tammy wrote: “I just wanted to let you know what we do here at Rapides Parish Library. We have a theme-bag delivery service to 63 Head Start and daycare centers in our area. We also became certified to do training for these teachers and daycare providers so that they could receive clock hours toward their CEUs or CDAs.

In these training sessions we take our theme-bags and show participants how we would use a puppet, a flannel board story or a music CD. We hold the sessions on Saturday mornings about every six weeks. The response has been overwhelming. Now we are often asked to do parent training for Head Start and the Louisiana Parent Congress.

My staff and I belong to several community organizations that work with children. We often do programs for each other’s groups. This has been an effective way to get the word out about our programs and offer other groups as resources for families with children who may need services.

In these hard times communities are going to have to pool resources and work together to prepare children for the future. If we don’t put the money behind preschool education now…we will spend it later in remedial programs and social services.”

Fran S. Simon (FSSimon) recently shared information on Twitter about a seminar on Measuring Home Visiting Program Performance. Hosted by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the seminar “will explore the new generation of home visiting research. Some of our nation’s costliest problems are rooted in early childhood. Evidence-based home visiting programs are proven to produce positive outcomes that deliver fiscal returns of up to $5.70 per dollar invested. As these programs scale up, performance monitoring is critical to assure delivery of high quality services that result in meaningful outcomes and build the case for serving additional families.”

Stay tuned!

By Karen Nemeth Ed.M.

Last week I attended a leadership symposium presented by the Pew Center on the States.  John Schlitt, director of the new Pew Home Visiting Campaign, hosted informative presentations and fielded important questions from participants.  We learned about the sophisticated research techniques that will be used to assess which aspects of home visiting programs are most effective so that future funding can be directed toward the greatest impact.  I was on twitter during the meeting to share live comments about what I was hearing.

Many wonderful experts, generous funders, and dedicated staff at the frontlines are going to be engaged in this initiative – amazing!   Then, we reached the end of the powerpoints and speeches, and I realized I had not heard one word about meeting the needs of children and families who speak languages other than English.  I don’t think they are against serving these families – I just think they aren’t used to thinking about them.  So, I’m here to push them in that direction.  We heard an astounding array of statistics on January 7.  Well, I think 25% is a pretty astounding number.  The number of young children born into immigrant families in this country right now is about 25%.

Let me repeat:  25%.  With so many resources and such earnest commitment, I hope Pew’s Home Visiting Campaign will make families who speak languages other than English a priority.  As, I’ve said in my earlier blogs, I believe that home visitors have the power to bring early learning support into the homes of children who are not enrolled in preschool – and that may contribute to our efforts to reduce the achievement gap.  I know that’s an assumption – but I can confidently state this:  If home visiting programs are important for English speaking families in disadvantaged areas, they certainly can’t be any less important for disadvantaged families who are also struggling with the language.  According to the Pew Home Visiting Campaign Fact Sheet:

“Parenting is difficult for everyone and it can be particularly challenging for low-income parents. Our campaign is eager to partner with other investors, advocates and policy makers to ensure America’s new and expectant families gain access to quality home visiting programs during a child’s most critical developmental period.”

Read that paragraph again with a picture in mind of a low income family who speaks only Spanish.  Now take that image a step further and imagine that scenario with a family who speaks a language that is not spoken by anyone else in the neighborhood or the school system.  These are challenging scenarios.  But the challenges will multiply if these families get no help as their children grow up.

If you have thoughts or comments, you can contact the Pew Center via the information on the fact sheet.  Certainly, feel free to leave comments here or write to me via my website.

I applaud Pew for taking on such an important endeavor, and I encourage them to take the lead in meeting the needs of the diverse population as it really exists in our country right now.

By Karen Nemeth, M. Ed.

Time after time teachers ask, “we believe in supporting the home language, but what should we do when parents ask us NOT to use anything other than English?”  Parents who speak another language often enroll their child in a preschool program with the expectation that total immersion in English will speed their child’s progress in American schools.  Research tells us this is the wrong way to go.  You can help parents understand that you share their desire for their child to learn English well and to succeed in school.  The best way to achieve this is to begin with strong support for the home language in the preschool years. Experts believe this approach will not only be effective in helping young dual language learners enter elementary school ready to succeed – but it will also prevent the tragic breakdown of family relationships that results from loss of the shared home language.  Here is some information you can use to engage parents in a strong collaboration in support of each child’s growing ability to learn and communicate in their home language.

1.     Children need time to continue strengthening the learning they’ve done in their first language, even while they are learning the second.  The brain doesn’t have a problem growing up with two or more languages at the same time.  Problems seem to occur when a new language overtakes the first and somehow interferes with language and content learning.  The studies summarized by the National Literacy Panel (August & Shanahan, 2008) revealed no short term or long term advantages to total English immersion in preschool.  Children who learn literacy skills first in their home language are likely to transfer those skills successfully to English (Paez & Rinaldi, 2006).  Other researchers, such as Collier (1987) have made the case that it takes six years or more for children to achieve sufficient academic fluency in a new language to succeed in school.  Clearly, preschoolers need more time to continue learning and experiencing the world in their home language if that is true.  I believe that one drawback of too-quick immersion is that young children are forced to spend too much of their valuable early learning time struggling with new vocabulary when they could be actively learning concepts.

2.     Children need to feel equally respected and loved. The home language is an integral part of each child’s identity.  Their self-esteem will suffer if they attend a preschool that makes their language to seem less worthy than English.  A study by Chang, et al (2007) found that Spanish-speaking children who do not receive support in their home language in preschool are more likely to be socially isolated, victims of bullying and viewed negatively by teachers.  Children who are not supported in their home language are also likely to lose their expressive ability in that first language, which is so critical to their bond with their families (Wong Fillmore, 1991).

3.     Children need adults who are able to form loving, nurturing relationships with them in order for their brain to develop to its full potential.  That means they need to continue the strong bond and communication with their parents – which requires continued growth in their home language.  It also means they need teachers who speak their language so they can gain the full benefits of human connectedness that make the best learning possible in those crucial early years.

Of course, educators need to understand and respect parental values.  It is not respectful, however, to go along with a parent’s wishes if you know there is a better way and there’s research to back it up.  It is up to teachers and administrators to make it clear that their language policy includes plans for each child to spend some of each day learning in their home language. Parents need to know that they should read to their child in their home language – and then talk about the books and share family stories and inside jokes and songs and rhymes and confidences and expressions of affection.  Teachers and families can work together to share knowledge about the language and about the individual needs and progress of the child. “By supporting the home language of each child while scaffolding their English learning, educators (and society) have much to gain and nothing to lose.  Being bilingual is surely an asset in today’s world.” (Nemeth, 2009)

Helpful resources:

• My website at http://www.languagecastle.com
• Challenging Common Myths about Young English Language Learners by L. Espinosa (Foundation for Child Development Policy Brief No. 8, 1/2008)
• Literacy information and activities for bilingual families www.colorincolorado.org

References:

• August, D. & T. Shanahan, eds. 2008. Developing reading and writing in second-language learners: Lessons from the Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth. New York: Routledge
• Chang, A., G. Crawford, D.Early, D. Bryant, C. Howes, M. Burchinal, O. Barbarin, R. Clifford, & R. Pianta. 2007. Spanish-speaking children’s social and language development in pre-kindergarten classrooms. Early Education and Development 18(2): 243-69.
• Collier, V. P. 1987. Age and rate of acquisition of second language for academic purposes.  TESOL Quarterly 21(4).
• Nemeth, K. 2009.  Meeting the home language mandate: practicial strategies for all classrooms. Young Children, March 2009: 36-42.
• Paez, M. & C. Rinaldi. 2006. Predicting English word reading skills for Spanish speaking students in first grade. Topics in Language Disorders 26(4): 338-50.
• Wong Fillmore, L. 1991. When learning a second language means losing the first. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 6(3): 323-47.