T-H-E.....Who knew?

I love that our Immersion program is so well supported by some terrific specialists who work so hard to help our students who struggle. These specialists are our Resource Room teacher, psychologist, Occupational Therapist, Speech Therapist and Social Worker. They are not Spanish speakers, so their time is limited for working with our students; but they have done a heroic job of being available to confer with us, to listen to our frustrations, concerns, and questions, and to offer us advice, with full knowledge that it may or may not be applicable to our Spanish Immersion setting.

I am thankful for "teachable moments" as one professional to another. Just this week I was talking with our Resource Room teacher, and she mentioned her concern that our Spanish Immersion students tend to get stuck spelling 'the' as 'thu'. She was so perplexed as to how these students came up with 'u', until I explained that with Spanish the vowels have only one sound, and that sound is spelled just like it's name says. So for these kids, when they hear someone say 'the' in English they go directly for the letter that they've been taught that makes the "uh" sound in English.....the letter u! (Good ole' short vowels!!)  These students are actually employing great transfer skills from one language to another, only those skills aren't always univeral.

I was so encouraged that day when the Resource Room teacher not only accepted my explanation, but expressed her thanks for that mini lesson in Spanish phonetics. Now she has new understanding to help these students make the transition back into English, either as part of the reintegration of English into the Immersion classrooms, or for students who are transferring out of the Immersion program and back into the traditional classroom. LIkewise this same Resource Room teacher has given me many helpful ideas to help my student who has cerebral palsy. Thank you!

Do you have auxiliary staff who have been particularly helpful in your Immersion program? I encourage you to take time today to let them know how much you appreciate them! I think we all realize that there will not be an overabundance of bi-lingual specialists anytime soon in our schools. So what can we all do to better service our struggling immersion students and continue to involve our specialists? Let us know how you tackle these issues!

~Sheryl René