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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It'll be fine, just hang in there.

EYES WIDE OPEN about the quality of the school, its leadership, and its upper grade academics. [b]"At least they're learning Spanish" covers a lot of problems, until it doesn't[/b].[/quote]

Very much this. [/quote]

Absolutely agree! My child was pretty miserable in immersion/bilingual. Some UMC families act like it's the gold standard but the truth is that it's not for every child nor every family. Not because of lack of ability (it's true that young brains can pick up a new language easily in general), but not every child is comfortable with the ambiguity that is involved in expressing themselves in a language that is not native for them. Keep your eyes open and listen to your instincts.[/quote]

Young brains can pick a new language, more easily, but there absolutely is a lack or lesser ability among kids, just like adults. There is some evidence to suggest language ability is genetic, so it might just not be your kid's strength, and it is hard to sublimate ego doing something that comes harder to you than others. [/quote]

The pp’s point was more nuanced. I was a kid who attended immersion and hated it, but I’m very good at languages and learned the target language and others easily later. But as a little kid I found immersion incredibly stressful and anxiety provoking, almost traumatic.[/quote]

Kids with anxiety, kids who are perfectionist, kids who see black and white, kids who can’t deal with ambiguity and unknowns coming from non Spanish speaking household will not do well and no surprises there.

I put my kid in at K and overwhelming majority of kids were there since ECE and knew Spanish.  He is easy going and although didn’t understand anything at the beginning, he had a great teacher.  Kids that young pick it up pretty quickly but PP above is also correct. Some kids pick it up much more easily than others like my son who is in the top Spanish group and scored >90% on MAP in Spanish.  We speak no Spanish and do no outside support.  Some kids struggle and it’s not uncommon for some families to leave immersion.  Most non-native kids do fine and are in the middle.

As the kids go higher up in the grades, the expectation gets higher and it’s not uncommon for some families to leave immersion if their kid is struggling. 
[/quote]

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