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Edison Language Academy – Together Through Two Languages (310) 828-0335 www.edison.smmusd.org
ANNOUNCEMENTS
EDISON PARENT SURVEY – Please complete and return a survey by May 20. We’re aiming for a 100% return rate so all Edison families’ input can inform our programs and policies for next year. When you turn in a survey before May 20, your child will be entered in a raffle for prizes. OPEN HOUSES – The K-1-2 (and Mrs. rd Boxer’s 3 grade class) Open House will be held on May 19. Dinner will be prepared for sale by 4th Grade Families. 5:15-6:00 pm -Food sale; 6:00 - 6:45 pm -- Classroom Visits; 6:45-7:15 pm -- Food sale. The Open House for 3-4-5 will be held on May 26, with dinner pre-pared by 1st grade families. For grades 3 and 5, the schedule is as follows: 5:00 - 6:00 pm -- Food Sales; 6:00 - 6:45 pm - Classroom Visits; 7:00 – 7:45 pm. -- Food sales. The 4th grade students will also be presenting their year-end play Spiderella in the cafeteria, their schedule is different: Room 200 (Ms. Maiztegui) – 5:00-6:00 pmPlay 6:15-7:00 pm Class Visit; Room 201 (Ms. Brumer) – 6:15-7:00 pm -Play; 7:007:45 pm Class Visit Room 202 (Mr. Nepomuceno) –Class Visit 6:00-6:45 pm - Play 7:00- 7:45 pm SMMEF MATCHING GRANT – If you have not yet given a contribution to SMMEF, now is the time! The Franklin Elementary School PTA has committed to match contributions up to $200,000. A funding shortfall could mean cuts for next year in funding for instructional assistants and stretch grants to support enrichment programs. You can donate on-line at www.smmef.org. LIBRARY BOOKS ARE DUE – Time to look in backpacks, under the bed, and behind the couch and return any Edison library books to the library before the end of the year.
FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S DESK: WANT TO FULLY LEARN A SECOND LANGUAGE? YOU HAVE TO SPEAK IT! There’s a growing body of research about bilingualism that shows what Edison parents already know – giving young children the opportunity to become bilingual gives them many benefits. In addition to the obvious social and economic benefits of being bilingual, research is now showing other cognitive benefits as well. For example, studies that suggest that adults who speak multiple languages are more likely to: have higher general intelligence; be better at planning, prioritizing, and decision making; score higher on standardized math, reading, and vocabulary tests; be more perceptive of their surroundings; understand other’s points of view; have better focus, concentration, and attention; delay immediate gratification in the pursuit of long-term goals; have better memory and memorization skills, including working memory; exhibit mental flexibility; switch between tasks quickly; be creative, and; have good listing skills (www.bebrainfit.com). Research also indicates that while children do absorb languages naturally by listening to them, if all they do is listen, their fluency will quickly become “passive.” That is, they may be able to understand the spoken language, but their ability to speak it themselves will be severely curtailed. True fluency in more than one language requires both exposure and use. Practice – with native speaker role models – is critical. It’s why we encourage parents to speak and read to children in the parents’ primary language, and why regular oral language practice at school in both languages is essential. Parents can over-estimate their children’s verbal skills in their non-dominant language. They sometimes feel that because the children seem to understand everything they hear, they are simply being shy or willful by not speaking it. We see this all the time on Kindergarten applications where parents write “he/she understands everything but for some reason he/she refuses to speak it.” But, as the research of Lily Wong Filmore and others indicates, in the case of immigrant families, it might not be about refusal to speak the language but rather that language shift now happens dramatically more quickly. When children lack a consistent and real reason to speak the minority language, they can quickly lose vocabulary and skills in this language. They become subtractive bilinguals with English replacing the home language rather than adding to it. This is one of the reasons why language immersion classrooms should not be quiet places – students must be required to speak both languages (especially the language to which children will, over their lifetimes, have less exposure). At home and at school, children need to “use it or lose it” and develop their language skills by speaking that language to the best of their ability as often as they can. Full bilingualism involves listening, speaking, reading ad writing and we want all our students to be additive and not subtractive bilinguals. May 23 rd 3 Grade Music Informances
May 25 – 8:30 am Parent Workshop “Helping Children with Transitions”
June 4 – 1:00-3:00 PM Immersion Seniors Graduation – Edison Cafetorium