Early education

Knowing that the children will learn and favor English in school, these pre-schoolers are prepared for school, but taught in Spanish. This should help them to grow up bilingual. DP

Program prepares Latino kids for school, preserves culture

By Brooke Adams, The Salt Lake Tribune

sltrib.com: Twice a week, a basement room at the old Midvale City Hall comes alive with the city's youngest constituents: children ages 1 to 5. La Escuelita, an early education program for Latino children, is in session.

The program has an obvious goal: Get the children ready for school and teach their parents, many of whom have only an elementary school education, how to help.

But it also has a more subtle aim: Give Latino children a firm foundation in Spanish so they do not lose their native language skills once they begin public school.

"Families who've migrated to Midvale realize that once the children get in school, their Spanish practically disappears," said Mauricio Agramont, community developer. "Parents want to keep a solid base of their native language so as [their children] grow up they become fully bilingual as adults."

Within a year or two of entering public school, most children start to become fluent in English but their literacy in Spanish begins to fade.

"By the next generation, Spanish will be out of their lives," Agramont said. "We keep hearing over and over, 'I wish I had done something so my kids had kept their language' because it's an advantage to be bilingual."
So Midvale created La Escuelita, a preschool program that is conducted almost entirely in Spanish.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.