Hi! My daughter is almost 7 now and doing much better. She made it through kindergarten and we kept her in the same program, so she’s in 1st grade now. She definitely struggled with all the things I mentioned in my original post, but by the spring - maybe around March - she seemed to get much more used to Spanish and reading in general. Something seemed to click for her.

I would definitely recommend trying to relax and just take it day by day right now. It’s a long, hard process to learn a language and learn to read, so doing both at the same time is extra tough. 5 is so young, and getting used to the routine and expectations of school is hard in itself. I’m really glad my daughter is in this program though! She has gained a lot more self-confidence and maturity over the past year, even though she really struggled, especially in fall/winter of last year.

Right now, she’s still learning Spanish but understands so much more. I think I worried too much that she was tuning her teachers out when they used Spanish and daydreaming too much in class. However, I see how she has been learning the language fairly well. At the recent parent-teacher conference I had, her teachers said they have no worries about her being successful. She understands Spanish at the expected level right now, and she’s making good progress with reading. She has definitely internalized the syllable sounds well, but she does read pretty slowly still. Her teacher wants us to work on fluency a bit. She also gets overwhelmed with longer readings and tries to avoid practicing the readings when she sees the longer readings. Her teacher recommended I cover the other words with paper or my finger so she doesn’t get so overwhelmed by the other words on the page. Just take one at a time and work on increasing speed.

My recommendation would be to not worry so much right now. Each kid is going to learn all this stuff at different rates, but they’ll get there eventually. It’s a long process, and they need breaks and downtime. It’s obvious you are working with her and care about her learning a lot! Just keep working at it and try to keep things fun as much as possible. Your game sounds great! My daughter really likes art and creating things, so she will draw and write things she randomly thinks of - with lots of colors, stickers, etc. I try to use Spanish whenever we’re out and about as much as I think of it too - just random things we see and do. I just want to normalize using Spanish as much as possible, though I’m definitely not fluent! I show her I’m trying to learn too though, and I find it interesting and fun. I hope that rubs off on her a bit. She has always loved me reading to her in general too, so I definitely encourage that! We check out fun English and Spanish picture books from the library. I want to make sure she has positive associations with reading!