ROGERS : Parents take English alongside their kids
Posted on Sunday, March 9, 2008
ROGERS — Voices filled a crowded classroom at Eastside Elementary School as Rebecca Booth led her class in a chant of the alphabet.
Booth pronounced a series of letters, sounds and words in a staccato rhythm along with a cassette tape.
“Y, yuh, yell,” she said, speaking deliberately.
The classmates weren’t children. They were parents of students in the district.
Booth, an English as a Second Language teacher in the Rogers School District, teaches families on Tuesday and Thursday nights. About 20 parents learn English alongside their children, who are classified as English-language learners within the district’s schools. Rogers offers the classes at four sites, serving about 80 families. It plans to add an additional site in the summer to meet increasing demand. The program is part of a national trend that’s taken root in Northwest Arkansas as its population of immigrants has grown. School districts are finding ways to draw parents of English-language learners into the classroom in hopes of increasing student achievement.
‘CHILD’S FIRST TEACHER’ In Booth’s class and others like it, parents and children split into two groups for the first half, completing lessons targeted to their life stages and language skills. Then they combine for conversational exercises and unit reviews.
“Sometimes, it’s a great chance for kids to show off what they’ve learned to their parents,” Booth said. “If you see that it’s important to Mom or Dad, it becomes more important to you.”
The classes are free. The program is funded with grants and organized by a partnership between the Rogers School District and Northwest Arkansas Community College, based in Bentonville.
Springdale offers a similar program through a partnership with the Ozark Literacy Council in Fayetteville, said Mary Bridgforth, the Springdale School District’s coordinator for English as a Second Language programs.
Bridgforth plans to apply for a $ 600, 000, three-year grant from the Toyota Family Literacy Program for a program that brings parents of English-language learners into the classroom during normal school hours to foster stronger relationships with administrators and greater understanding of a child’s education, she said.
Bridgforth expects a decision on the grant application by late April.
The Hispanic Family Learning Institute, a division of the National Center for Family Literacy in Louisville, Ky., helps operate the program. In the past five years, 60 schools in 20 U. S. cities have enlisted, said Deborah Hasson, institute director.
“A parent is a child’s first teacher,” she said. “Nobody knows a child better than the parent. You help the parents help themselves, and that translates into helping the child.”
A study of 1, 842 children showed that 921 benefited from the family literacy program, when compared with 913 whose families did not participate.
Teachers rated students on a scale of 1 to 5 in several categories, with 1 being poor and 5 being excellent. Participating children scored 3. 5 to 4. 4 and nonparticipant children from 3. 4 to 4. 0.
Researchers noted significant changes in academic performance and motivation among program participants, Hasson said.
Northwest Arkansas should be a good environment for the program, with its large immigrant population, she said.
Data from the U. S. Census Bureau shows that Benton County had the country’s fastest-growing Hispanic population from 1990 to 2000, from 1, 359 residents to 13, 469.
Washington County ranked third, jumping from 1, 526 Hispanic residents to 12, 932.
A 2007 study by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation found that 82 percent of Arkansas immigrant children from Mexico and Central America have at least one parent with Limited English Proficiency, and 58 percent have two parents with that federal designation. The study notes that a lack of conversational English skills limits a parent’s ability to be involved in their child’s education. Students designated as English-language learners make up 27 percent of Rogers School District’s enrollment of 13, 490 students. Of Springdale’s 16, 631 students, 39 percent have limited English skills.
The English language-learning population is largely Spanish-speaking, but there are other language groups. Rogers students come from homes with 29 primary languages, and Springdale students come from homes with 37 primary languages, according to the school districts.
DESIRE TO LEARN Araceli Lugo speaks Spanish to her daughter Emily, 4, and son Armando, 7. Armando is a second-grader at Eastside Elementary School. Lugo enrolled in Booth’s family classes with her children this year. Despite moving here seven years ago, her English is slow and forced, and she has difficulty following basic conversations. “I’m here, because my child knows more English than I do,” she said. Armando helped his mother alphabetize a list of nouns during the recent session, reinforcing lessons he learned earlier in the school year.
The class is mostly mothers with young children, who frequently grasp subjects more quickly than their parents, Booth said.
Tanya Patterson, a migrant specialist who coordinates the Rogers district’s family classes, said children begin grasping the language spoken in their home when they are 16 months old, creating aural patterns that are difficult to change.
The family classes help create a heightened desire to learn in students, she said.
“It’s like any student,” Patterson said. “When your parents are involved in the education process, it provides greater accountability. This helps the parents provide a supportive environment.”
The burden of responsibility hampers the language-learning process, she said. Some students resort to jargon to help their parents communicate, serving as impromptu liaisons. Elementary school pupils might find themselves standing next to a parent at the mechanic’s shop, interpreting descriptions of recurring problems with the family car, parroting back the strange sounds it makes. The classes attempt to free pupils from the role of family interpreter. “I think it’s very important for parents to be independent of their kids,” Patterson said. “Most families have a desire to learn English.”
To contact this reporter: eblad@arkansasonline. com
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