It’s important for me to teach my children Spanish for communication and closeness. If they lose Spanish, I lose them,” says a parent of a preschooler in San Mateo County. Graciela Italiano-Thomas, chief executive officer of Los Angeles Universal Preschool (LAUP), sympathizes: “It’s hard to guide children (in the U.S.) when you don’t speak English fluently. It’s best to maintain the home language.”

Research also shows, according to the national Head Start office, that bilingual children have better learning skills—and better job opportunities when they grow up!

How can preschool programs support young children in continuing to learn their home languages while learning English?

The Early Childhood Language Development Institute

Last year, Ana Cervantes’ five-year-old daughter Evelyn attended the Community Education Center’s preschool program in Redwood City. Like most preschoolers, Evelyn spent her mornings painting, cutting, and coloring. Cervantes, who volunteers in the classroom once a month, says the bilingual staff “speak both Spanish and English, which is good for me because I don’t speak English, but good for Evelyn too—she can use her Spanish but is also learning English.”

Preschool teachers in San Mateo County have a unique resource: the Early Childhood Language Development Institute (ECLDI). Begun in 2003, the institute offers workshops to preschool teachers and parents on topics such as bilingual/multilingual language development, teacher-family partnerships, and transitioning to the K-12 system.

Home language helps

Barbara Applegate, state preschool director at the San Mateo County Office of Education, says, “Research shows that the stronger your foundation is in the first language, the faster and easier it is to learn the second language. The best thing we can do to help children learn a new language successfully is to help them develop their home language at the same time as we help them learn English.”

Soodie Ansari, ECLDI project specialist, says, “We do a lot of work on strategies to support home culture and language (see below: Supporting children's home language and culture). If we bring in children’s culture, that creates a sense of belonging, which has an impact on the child’s sense of identity and self-esteem, the quality of the learning experience, and academic success.”

Worries based on myths

Ansari says some of the concerns of parents and educators are based on “myths” about language learning. For example, some adults worry when a child mixes words from different languages. According to Ansari, this mixing of languages is quite common and lessens as a child’s vocabulary grows. “There’s no cause for alarm or correction,” she says. “We want the child to use language. You are not slowing down the (learning) of the second language or damaging (the child).” Young children have the brain capacity to learn two languages without getting confused.

Camino Nuevo

Located in the largely immigrant Los Angeles neighborhood of MacArthur Park, the Camino Nuevo Charter Academy serves children from preschool to 12th grade. The school staff is all bilingual. Preschool classes are almost entirely in Spanish, with more English added in each grade.

Some Spanish-speaking parents, “when they find out that Spanish is the primary language, want to go elsewhere,” says Natalie O’Neil, Camino Nuevo’s director of early childhood education. “I tell them by giving their child a solid foundation in Spanish they will be more successful academically and learn English more easily too.”

Home language is foundation

Italiano-Thomas of LAUP, which funds the preschool program at Camino Nuevo, says, “Working with young children, it’s important to understand that the child comes (as part of) a family system. Maintenance of the home language is so essential to the emotional and (learning) foundation for the rest the child’s life.”

Parents can see the results. One mother, whose youngest child attended Camino Nuevo preschool, told O’Neil, “I wish I had sent all my children to preschool. He’s so much farther along at four years old than my older kids.”

Developing good models

“What we’re doing at LAUP that’s so exciting,” says Italiano-Thomas, “is developing models that work. This is not about belief. The research is there. Our approach is to (avoid political arguments), to focus on what works for the success of children.”

Applegate agrees: “Right now, public school policy, mandated by Prop. 227 (the “English-only” initiative), is based on feelings. State policy—including the new preschool standards—should be based on research.”

Supporting children’s home language and culture

It’s best if young children have teachers who speak their language. But teachers can also:

• Provide books, music, and signs in the languages children speak at home
• Have children dictate stories in their home language and post them on the walls
• Provide objects commonly used in the children’s homes
• Sing songs and learn games in children’s home languages
• Learn at least a few words in the child’s home language
• Play a tape of a parent telling a story, talking, or singing in the home language
• Try reading or telling simple stories in children’s home language even if you don’t speak it fluently!
• Use the “language weaving” technique (switching between the first and second language)
• Express enthusiasm about the benefits of being bilingual and your desire to learn about the cultures of the children.

—adapted from an ECLDI handout

Developing preschool standards for children learning English

The California Department of Education is now drafting “preschool learning standards” (see Early Care and Education:Preschool after Prop. 82).

Asked what the standards will say about children learning English, Gwen Stephens, assistant director of the Child Development Division, said, “The preschool standards will address language needs through the language and literacy standards and English learning benchmarks.”

Advocates say the standards should follow these guidelines:

Key principles

• Base standards on research.
• Support children’s home language.

—LAUP & ECLDI

• Do not use English Immersion in preschool.
• Train preschool teachers in meeting needs of children learning English.

—APIsCAN

Developing standards

• Include language learning experts in developing, reviewing, and implementing standards.
• Allow public review of standards before they are adopted.

—APIsCAN

Resources

• Becoming Bilingual: First and Second Language Acquisition, Philip Gonzalez, Head Start Information and Publication Center.

• Preschool English Learners: Principles and Practices to Promote Language Literacy and Learning, California Department of Education, 2006, 916-445-1260

• Developing the Young Bilingual Learner, NAEYC video, item #801, 202-232-8777, www.naeyc.org

Extra resources from the Children’s Advocate bulletin (updated 9-06)

• English Learning for Preschoolers Project, from WestEd's Center for Child and Family Studies, provides teaching strategies, materials, and trainings on issues affecting preschoolers who speak a language other than English. Online at http://www.edgateway.net/pub/docs/pel/home.htm
  In Spanish at
  http://www.edgateway.net/pub/docs/pels/home.htm

• One Child, Two Languages offers ways to help children learn a second language and create a supportive classroom environment. $28. Available from RedLeaf Press, (800) 423-8309, summary online at http://www.redleafpress.org/

• Pre-K and Latinos: The Foundation for America's Future, from Pre-K Now, provides policy recommendations for increasing the number of Latino children in preschool. Online at http://www.preknow.com/documents/
  Pre-KandLatinos_July2006.pdf

• Two-Way and Monolingual English Immersion in Preschool Education, from NIEER, finds that an English/Spanish immersion program helped children learn more Spanish without hurting their English skills. Online at http://nieer.org/resources/research/TwoWay.pdf

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