11yo bilingual boy, which programme ?

[sarah.]

To give you some background

 

His first three years of formal education were spent in an Italian primary school. He learned to read in English behind my back. I discovered him with one of my ancient Ladybird books that I'd put in his bedroom with a view to teaching him to read in English after the first year of Italian primary was done with so he would be less likely to get the phonetics (or lack there of) muddled up. He foiled my cunning plan. So far reading seems fine and on track although I have to require him to read rather than finding him curled up with a book for the joy of it.

 

I home educated him for 4/5 year primary, but because we have to sit exams here every year I could not make a huge priority of bringing him to speed in English without impacting on the amount of time necessary to pass the exams in Italian. I also think I got too hung up on the Key Stage 2 levels and ended up "teaching to the test" rather than teaching him how to improve his written English.

 

He went into first year Italian middle school this year (his choice) and the homework load was so immense I had to choose between reducing his social opportunities to nothing, or work on his English. I picked his social life because this is not a child who will flourish without companionship in both a group and one on one setting.

 

He was withdrawn from school a couple of weeks ago. This is the first thing he has written (in English) since June last year. He had no help at all, 30 minutes to do it in and the spellchecker was turned off.

 

My plan is to do an hour of English a day, focusing on the written because that is where I feel he lags significantly, from now until the end of the school year. Over the summer I want to cover English more intensively with a view to him entering InterHigh at year 7 in September. He actually should go into year 8, but he is an August baby so I'm not concerned that he'll be that much older than the rest of the class.

 

I'm very attracted to the WWE and the WWS courses, but since his grade/age do not reflect his actual ability I am at loss to know which one to pick.

 

Can anybody advise ?

 

His written work from this morning.....

 

--------

 

Describe your best friend.

 

My best friend Mattia A------i.

 

He is eleven years old,he is a student in g---------o.

 

He's really tall,strong and a little stupid. he's hair is short and there black as a cave.

 

He's eyes are green like a field.

 

He's nose small.

 

He's mouth is large and rouf.

 

He's funny,

 

-----

 

I can't believe how much he has slipped backwards.

 

I think I'm going to cry. Please tell me it is like riding a bicycle and it will come back once he gets back into the saddle.

 

Do I go back to the beginning and start again, or pick something more typically used with his age group and take it slowly, plugging gaps as they arise ?

[Lily_Grace]

I would start with something like Writing Tales, book 1, to be honest. Book 1 is meant for 3rd-4th grade (8-10yos) but it is set up in such a way that I think it would be beneficial to an ESL student. Each 2 week lesson starts with a piece of a known work like The Princess and the Pea or Aesop's fables. The whole two weeks focus on that one piece, having the student do copywork, vocab, learning the parts of speech, and working on a rewrite of the piece in their own words. It is gentle, but definitely would help to get him up to speed.

 

BTW, wherabouts in Italy are you? We're rather north, near the Venice area.

[Ester Maria]

Do you speak English to him? Do you use English exclusively with him, while your spouse speaks exclusively Italian? Do you read aloud to / with him English books and have you done so since he was a young child? Does he lag behind in *general* English language skills (speech, oral & written comprehension, etc.) or specifically in writing?

 

What I would do would depend on the answer to those questions. In any case add as much reading - and reading together - as possible. Can you add more English into his life by tieing it to what he studies in Italian (thematically)? That is how we did.

 

If I gather correctly, you essentially intend to homeschool him only through this year and have him go back to media next year for second year?

[sarah.]

I would start with something like Writing Tales, book 1, to be honest. Book 1 is meant for 3rd-4th grade (8-10yos) but it is set up in such a way that I think it would be beneficial to an ESL student. Each 2 week lesson starts with a piece of a known work like The Princess and the Pea or Aesop's fables. The whole two weeks focus on that one piece, having the student do copywork, vocab, learning the parts of speech, and working on a rewrite of the piece in their own words. It is gentle, but definitely would help to get him up to speed.

 

BTW, wherabouts in Italy are you? We're rather north, near the Venice area.

 

I'll go check that one out.

 

I'm near Pavia, land of fog and evil mosquitoes.

[sarah.]

Do you speak English to him? Yes. Since birth. I never speak Italian to him, unless we are slogging through his Italian grammar book for example.

 

Do you use English exclusively with him, while your spouse speaks exclusively Italian? Yes. OPOL since birth.

 

Do you read aloud to / with him English books and have you done so since he was a young child? Yes. Although I haven't done much reading aloud to him since ten years old or so when he started reading "real" books independently. Should I start doing it again? More than happy to if it would help. In fact I'd like it. He is at the "too cool for cuddles" stage and reading to him might get me some inadvertent snuggles off him.

 

Does he lag behind in *general* English language skills (speech, oral & written comprehension, etc.) or specifically in writing? He is a little behind overall. There is some interference from Italian in speaking (using the wrong aux. verb, hair as a plural, sometimes dropping the personal pronoun) but nothing too serious. He has a slight Italian accent. Reading is OK in terms of comprehension, but I have to get him to read out loud to me regularly to make sure the sight words aren't getting mangled in his haste to get his reading "over and done with". Listening is fine, aside from a tween issue with selective deafness. Writing is the area that worries me. It seems so far behind the other skills.

 

 

 

What I would do would depend on the answer to those questions. In any case add as much reading - and reading together - as possible. Can you add more English into his life by tying it to what he studies in Italian (thematically)? That is how we did. That's more or less what we did for 4/5 primary. Overlapping the subjects so the material was covered in both languages. As soon as I have caught my breath we'll carry on with that. However I would like to carve put some special attention for writing in English because it does seem so out of whack with his other skills in English.

 

If I gather correctly, you essentially intend to homeschool him only through this year and have him go back to media next year for second year? No. Over my dead body (: I'll end up burning down the school or something if he goes back into the Italian system as it is in this area. InterHigh is an "virtual" school based in the UK. We'll be combining that with Italian home ed and tutors to get him through the Italian exams next year.

[Ester Maria]

Although I haven't done much reading aloud to him since ten years old or so when he started reading "real" books independently. Should I start doing it again?

Yes, absolutely. At least give it a try.

 

Reading aloud has never been very successful in our home past certain age, as my daughters have always preferred to read on their own. At the same time, however, I never quite managed to get my middle daughter to the level of age-appropriate, reasonable proficiency in Hebrew - my eldest daughter caught up, but my middle daughter, somehow, did not.

 

We had a third child and decided to attempt OPOL this time, with me speaking Italian to her and DH speaking Hebrew to her. Soon, as it somehow became natural, DH switched to speaking mostly Hebrew, when one on one, with our middle daughter too, who was 12/13 years old at that time - and I decided, against my instincts and experience, to go back to the technique of reading aloud with her taking turns.

 

I have no idea WHAT happened, but SOMETHING happened. She is fresh 14 years old now and over the past year her Hebrew went up several grade levels. It is still not where it "should" be, but I have been very pleasantly surprised. Our older daughters grew up Italian / English bilingual, so Hebrew has always been the neglected language which was just not getting done.

 

I was quite shocked as to how much something as simple as reading aloud has helped, especially having HER do that, and having her paraphrase it back. First we paraphrased it orally, then she started to paraphrase what we were reading in writing, and I allowed her the use of the text alone. I threw in some copywork too, mostly for things she liked - basically, I went for elementary school *methods* (of copywork and narration) on middle school *content*. She has really improved a LOT.

 

We read aloud anything and everything, from very, very easy chapter books for kids only beginning to read, to regular middle school materials for areas she was interested in and for Bible / language.

At the same time, I started her on about 3rd-4th grade level regular Israeli school textbooks for language and literature, and built it from there, allowing her to jump ahead where needed and stop by at the things she struggled with. She is still a bit behind, but the progress has been immense.

 

I think it is not so much important which materials you use, but that you put your son back to track using such techniques.

No. Over my dead body (: I'll end up burning down the school or something if he goes back into the Italian system as it is in this area. InterHigh is an "virtual" school based in the UK. We'll be combining that with Italian home ed and tutors to get him through the Italian exams next year.

Ah, sorry. :) I thought that InterHigh was your "translation" of media inferiore (I always find myself "translating" the system when I write here), so I was wondering how come you only intend to homeschool him for one semester.

 

Once you enroll him in a virtual school in English, it is going to be a lot easier due to mere exposure.

 

Another thing you could do would be note-taking in English while following some lectures or documentaries in English on what interests him, and then expanding those notes into shorter pieces of writing. I would be careful not to overwhelm the child - stick to a paragraph or two at the beginning.

 

Does your son use any ESL materials from school? I imagine he is doing English there as FL1 or FL2. You can look into those for summarizing exercises, but for the most part, I would not use ESL materials with him, but materials aimed at native English speakers, only several grade levels below + expand that with these additional techniques (of reading aloud, copywork and oral and written narrations from read alouds, note-taking, etc.).

 

Another thing to keep in mind is that the *emphasis* on writing in the school systems is far from equal. I am not familiar with UK, but in the USA, there is a LOT of emphasis on writing from early on, formal writing program, etc., none of the things we had in Italian as children, and none of the things I did so very formally with my children. If your son can write decently in Italian for age-appropriate standards, and express himself well, he probably got down the mechanics of writing and as he *uses* the language more and becomes comfortable with more and more registers, much of his skill will transfer naturally. So, I would invest in THAT more than in formal writing instruction.

 

Sorry this is so disjointed and general (rather than specific recommendations), I spent several hours earlier dealing with bureaucracy so I am a bit scattered. :lol:

 

Good luck!

Edited March 5, 2012 by Ester Maria

[Sahamamama]

A few other thoughts, to add to what EM posted:

 

Could you purchase audiobooks on your son's listening level, along with a paper copy of the same book? While he listens to the audiobook, he can follow along in the paper copy.

 

If you start with WWE, it would be possible to go through the lessons at an accelerated pace. At Level 1, there are four lessons each week -- two short copywork sentences, and two short narrations ("Tell me something you remember from the passage"). With an 11 year old, you could probably do one week's worth of lessons in a day (or two days). So WWE 1 would take 9 (or 18) weeks to complete. Or, depending on how he progresses, you might decide to do only every other week (for example, all odds).

 

At Level 2, there are four lessons each week -- a copywork passage that becomes the next day's dictation, and two longer narrations ("Tell me in two sentences what happened in this story"). IMO, an 11 year old could complete a week's worth of lessons in two days, so the WWE 2 would take 18 weeks to complete.

 

If you choose WWE, you might want to check the Peace Hill Press website, find the diagnostic evaluations for WWE, and test your son to determine placement. The advantage to WWE is the ability to purchase it as a download, and print out only the lessons you need. From what you've posted, your son will certainly move through WWE 1 and 2 at a faster pace than two full school years, and you will have ample material to work with to improve his written English.

 

For spelling, would you be able to purchase All About Spelling? This might help to demystify English spelling for him. If you do decide to go with AAS, you should know that Level 1 goes quickly for a student with any idea of English spelling, but it's a good place to begin. For an 11 year old, I'd try to work through Levels 1 (4 weeks), 2 (14 weeks), and 3 (18 weeks) in a year.

 

If you could send him to England for a few months, I'm sure that would improve his English! :D HTH.

Edited March 5, 2012 by Sahamamama

[Ester Maria]

Could you purchase audiobooks on your son's listening level, along with a paper copy of the same book? While he listens to the audiobook, he can follow along in the paper copy.

This is a good idea too!

 

Also, watching films with subtitles OR EVEN watching films with audio off (just like on TV you have the options of subtitles for those who do not hear?). Israeli TV subtitles a heck lot - you hear Hebrew plus you get to see it written and have all the visuals of the show to help you - so the whole package somehow exposes you more to literacy. I even had my DD watch several shows in Hebrew with audio off, trying to follow it from subtitles and visuals only. It was fun - but it probably also contributed at least a bit to her reading speed, LOL.

If you could find shows in English subtitled in English on something that interests your son, you could experiment a bit with that.

[sarah.]

So, having read all the excellent advice and talking to DS this is where we are.

 

He had a fit at the idea we should start with a book "for little kids". The word "unfair" was used repeatedly to describe deceitful parents who don't tell children the work they are about to do will be externally evaluated. This was proffered on the basis that had child known other people were going to see and assess his work "I would have TRIED"!

 

So one life lesson learned there. Perhaps some effort employed as the norm rather than only in extraordinary circumstance will make a difference to progress in general. He has begged for the chance to do another piece of writing to post as an example and I have agreed, under one condition. That first we spend a month using the ideas suggested before he gets another crack of the whip.

 

My part of the bargain is that I won't buy "baby" resources until the month is over and he has had a chance to prove what he can do "if I try".

 

So this is the plan.

 

We did the WWE evaluation and I noticed that knowing I was going to be asking questions meant he actually listened rather glazing over. He tested fine up to book 3, aside from the dictations which were a tad iffy.

 

So I am going to use the Galore Park Junior English book that we didn't get around to using last year for texts and we are going to do something similar. The idea is that for each text we will:

 

Have me read to him, with him knowing I am going to ask questions (aimed at forming the skeleton of a summary)

Have him read the text silently.

Have him listen to me read the text while he follows the words on the page with his finger (with him noticing and correcting me where I skip words, stick in extra words, mispronounce, ignore punctuation or go all robotic)

Have him read a part of the text out loud to me.

Go over the questions and produce accurate, perfectly spelled answers. With punctuation.

Orally reduce the answers into a two or three sentence summary of the text.

Work out on rough paper a perfectly spelled and punctuated summary.

As copy-work write up the summary in his exercise book in perfect handwriting with no spelling mistakes, missing punctuation etc.

 

That is where we got to today in about an hour. Tomorrow phase two begins

 

Using the copy-work from the day before as a dictation.

Doing the sentence level, written exercises in the book.

Going back over Starfall to refresh his memory of English phonics (some sulking over this)

 

And then on to the next chapter.

 

I know his aim is that when he comes back in a month people will suggest WWE 4 or other resources of a comparable level. We shall see.

 

In addition we added the following daily activities yesterday which we will keep up.

 

Watching Disney English on SKY Italia with subtitles in English. I occasionally pause and then ask him to spell a word that was just on the screen. He pauses when he notices a spelling that surprises him and we have a closer look at it.

 

I read a good few of pages of his book to him at night (currently the second Hawking's book..George something or other). He follows the text with his finger, I read. Then he reads a short page and I finger follow (with taps for mispronunciation, skipped words, invented words that aren't there, robotic intonation, ignoring punctuation). Wash, rinse, repeat. Sound awful, but actually he was in fits of giggles last night and was stopping me when he noticed a spelling that made him a little cross eyed when compared to the correct pronunciation, to check the meanings of words and to ask questions to clarify his understanding of a phrase or a paragraph. I got lots of cuddles and he didn't even notice I had breeched the Kewl Tween Kode of no soppy, babyish maternal physical contact.

 

I have dragged out the TAOC cards, we are going to have a fifteen minute session daily orally, and then a freer writing session where he invents a character and has them answer the question. Which we will then write up in a collaborative fashion initially, moving towards independent production as his accuracy improves.

 

If all of the above works (and I think it will based on how well it went today) I may well be tempted to dump the ministerial programme and use the same techniques to improve his accuracy in Italian (**** those double constants and the verb avere having a silent H etc. etc.)

 

I feel way better. Far more in control, with a plan, and a sense that this is actually going to work.

 

So from the bottom of of my Matalan heels, I thank you all for taking the time and trouble to respond to my post in such detail and with so many doable and positive suggestions.