This week I will be doing some posts about helping new children navigate the public school system. Since I am a homeschooling mom, I have asked some public-schooling moms I trust to share some of their wisdom with you, especially in regards to the language barrier.

I want to start by explaining a few terms that these moms will be using.

ESL= 'English as a Second Language' - a program that most public schools have to help children learn English.

ELL= English Language Learner

Title One= a federally funded program to provide extra assistance to students with reading difficulties. (more info)

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The first mom who is weighing in on this topic is my friend Chris Little. She is the mother of 13 children, almost half of whom are from Ethiopia. Here is what she has to say on getting the best for older children newly arrived in America.

"For all you parents waiting for your older child to arrive home, DO NOT EXPECT YOUR LOCAL SCHOOL TO EFFECTIVELY MEET YOUR CHILD'S NEEDS. Not because they are unwilling, but because newly arrived children present a challenge they have not seen before.

Our kids are not the average ELL student - they do not return home every afternoon to families where their original language is spoken. Instead, they will be WITHOUT a language for quite some time. Their Amharic will fade away and their English will be at a very fundamental level. That means learning slows down. Memory is impacted as memory needs a language to store the information.

"The ELL teacher for our district is expected to make contact with 26 students, at four different schools, in four hours a day. Asking about Title 1 is a good idea - unless you run into the same problem we did.

"Under the very strict guidelines for eligibility, language is not necessarily a ticket into the program. Our district refused to allow our first couple of kids to participate. There is very little research and even less training about how to help kids who have arrived in the states through
adoption from a foreign country.

"Most schools are trying to make it up as they go along. The answer for our family has been to homeschool, something I never expected to do. But we have found that direct instruction seems to be the best way for our kids to learn.

"Certainly, any child [arriving in the later elementary years] needs to have extreme accommodations. Expecting kids to be at grade level for the first several years is ridiculous. And I guarantee that [because of stress] much of the work being done in the first weeks home is a waste of time - it won't 'stick.'

"The last thing we all want is to have the child become so frustrated that they hate school!"

So advocate for your kids!! Thanks for weighing in, Chris.

(part two coming soon)