From the Archive: Bilingual Homeschool Experiment

Well, this experiment is turning out to be a success. We started teaching our daughter reading in Spanish last year. This school year, which is her "official" kindergarten year at the age of 6, I was "supposed" to start her in English.

Needless to say, I did not. We didn't practice as much as I wanted over the summer, and she started off a bit slow. Thankfully, she picked up fairly quickly. She's now at the point where she feels comfortable writing in Spanish. And we do spelling using a native Spanish curriculum.

Because we are in an English majority area, and she's completely bilingual, I wasn't really worried about postponing the English phonics. But, decided to go ahead and get started since she's doing so well with Spanish.

At the beginning of January, I decided to start her on English short vowel sounds using Explode the Code. She's doing ok, but I'm adding more reading practice using Phonics Pathways. I don't understand why she has a hard time hearing the short /i/ sound. She can read Bob Books, and likes to play around on starfall.com, but of course still prefers to read in Spanish.

We were doing math in Spanish, but 2-3 days a week, we do it in English so she can understand the vocabulary in both.

Right now, she decided to make a TV set with remote, and she's sticking her face in it pretending to officiate a soccer game - in English and Spanish. "He kicks, he scores! Gol, gol, gol!!!".

Yeah. We love to homeschool. And we obviously watch too much "futbol."