Class Targets Spanish-Speaking Preschoolers

By JANESE HEAVIN

A summer pilot program in Columbia aims to introduce Hispanic preschoolers to the English language before they head to kindergarten.

The three-week !Listo! Summer School starts next Monday and will serve as many as 16 Spanish-speaking children who haven’t already been introduced to English at another preschool, said Phil Peters, director of First Chance for Children and one of the program’s organizers.

“This is for kids who have been at home with mom and are walking into the kindergarten door having spoken very little English,” he said. “It’s a crash course in English before kindergarten.”

Sarah Pedrazas, who teaches English language learners at Field Elementary School, will oversee the class, and four junior high school students will serve as tutors. The classes will run from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at First Baptist Church’s Child Development Center, 1112 E. Broadway.

Youngsters enrolled in !Listo! will be introduced to colors, numbers, letters and other English words they will likely hear in kindergarten. The goal is to get the children to simply talk in English with their tutors.

“Children who are very young learn a second language by immersion, so classes don’t have to be structured the way an adult would learn,” Peters said. “Talking in a second language is the key when picking it up when you’re very young.”

The pilot program is being funded through a $10,000 grant from the University of Missouri’s Cambio Center, which strives to help Latino families adjust to life in Mid-Missouri, director Domingo Martinez-Castilla said. The center chose to fund the pilot preschool program in hopes of giving the youngsters a head start.

“It is very well known that Hispanic children tend to be less successful in school, and many attribute that to not being completely fluent in English,” Martinez-Castilla said.

Organizers will track the success of the program through pre- and post-tests and will track some of the children through kindergarten. If it’s successful, they will have to find a way to fund the program on an annual basis.

“We’ll see how much good three weeks of morning classes do to see whether this ought to be replicated and, if so, what improvements could be made,” Peters said. “We’ll need to assess the program to see whether it’s a fundraising priority.”

Reach Janese Heavin at (573) 815-1705 or jheavin@tribmail.com.

Originally published by JANESE HEAVIN of the Tribune’s staff.

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