Parents Without English Skills Helping Their Kids in School : Parent Powerline Insights

Parents Without English Skills Helping Their Kids in School : Parent Powerline Insights
Tuesday, May 7, 2024 by Becky Cerling Powers

Parents without English Skills

How can parents who don’t know English help their kids in school?

Patricia is a young mom who moved to El Paso from Mexico as a teen. Recently, she asked me how to prepare her kindergartner for reading.

“Children need to be able to hear differences in the sounds of words before they start reading,” I explained. “One way to help your daughter is to play rhyming games like this: you say ‘hat-mat.’ She repeats the last word you said and says another word that rhymes: ‘mat-sat.’ Just keep doing that: sat-fat, fat-bat.”

“I can’t think of rhyming words quickly,” Maria said. “It’s hard for me in English.”

“Then play the rhyming game in Spanish,” I said. “You’re training her ear to hear the difference in sounds. If she learns to do it in Spanish, she’ll transfer that ability to English in school.”

Parents like Maria, who are still learning English themselves, usually feel handicapped trying to help their children in school.

But if these parents nurture their children’s essential learning ability, that ability will transfer across language boundaries.

Children without this basic ability will usually have trouble in school, even if they grow up in a home that speaks only English.

So, what parts of a child’s life can parents nurture without knowing English?

Curiosity and thinking skills

A child curious in one language will be curious in English, too. Parents encourage curiosity by taking time when children show interest in something like a bug or plant, responding warmly to their questions, and finding books about their special interests.

Giving kids lots of experiences encourages curiosity, too, like:

taking kids on walks to look at nature or busy construction sites
going to museums, parks, fiestas, and other exciting places
and – this is important – encouraging kids either to tell someone else about an experience or to draw a picture of the experience and explain it to someone.

Basic math

Once children understand how to count, add, subtract, divide, etc. in one language, they can perform the same operations in a new language.

All they have to do is learn new vocabulary.

Love of books

Children whose parents read books to them in their native language will be drawn to books in English, too.

Books increase children’s vision of the world and teach them how to use language in general. Books also stimulate their imagination, lengthen their attention span, and help children develop thinking skills. Books are the doorway to an academic education.

Storytelling

Listening to stories builds children’s vocabulary in the storyteller's language. Encouraging children to retell or make up stories develops their ability to express themselves in the language they speak.

However, storytelling and story-making also develop important skills that are not tied to any particular language.

These activities stretch children’s imaginations, build their attention span, and develop social skills.

Some forms of storytelling are better than others for developing kids’ learning skills.

These can be reading, having someone else read to them, listening to stories on tape or radio, or – best of all – having adults tell them stories about “when I was a little girl” or other experiences (as long as the stories are not designed to criticize what a child has said or done).

TV and the internet are full of stories. Unfortunately, these stories are usually shown in shallow ways that keep children’s attention span short. With screen stories, kids tend to respond emotionally instead of developing their thinking skills.

A sense of being loved and valued

Children who feel they aren’t worth much or aren’t sure their parents love them will often be too preoccupied to do well in school.

Instead of concentrating on schoolwork, they may look for ways to hide their shame and to find love and acceptance from peers.

Character development and spiritual values

Does a boy keep going until the job is done, or does he quit easily? Does a girl do chores willingly, or does she grumble and gripe and make everyone around her miserable?

Children’s moral character and spiritual values affect all their relationships, work habits, and work attitudes in school.

Talking with children while working alongside them teaches attitudes and values. Storytelling can be a natural part of that process, as can the all-important development of a child’s sense of being loved and valued.

Did you notice what was missing from this list?

I’ll tell you: screens. Like TV, tablets, computers, phones…

Our world is full of screens, and we’re busy. (And when we aren’t busy, we may be looking at a screen ourselves). We must discipline ourselves to do what’s best for our children’s future instead of what’s easiest for us to do now.

Good parenting is more important for children than knowing a particular language. Parents don’t need to speak English to give their children a healthy childhood and an enormous boost over the language hurdle.

For more parenting insights from Becky Cerling Powers read her parenting book Sticky Fingers, Sticky Minds: quick reads for helping kids thrive in the Bookstore

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