Stahlke Adoption

He's a Big Kid Now

Some of you have asked about the current state of Kola’s English. Around the time of his birthday (March 29), he told both Jonathan and me: “I’m six now. Talk English to me.” We hear Ukrainian spoken only on occasion now, except for Saturdays when the three youngest children attend Ukrainian school.

Besides learning English at a younger age than our other children, Kola has also experienced more of an immersion experience. When the older five arrived, our household functioned in Ukrainian for about nine months, although I did switch to English in January when the children’s English became better than my Ukrainian. Jonathan hung on until June, when the kids started speaking English even with each other. Kola’s situation was completely different—he was surrounded by English unless one of us addressed him directly, which had to be in Ukrainian.

Kola's initial lack of communication ability caused him to act out in school, especially when he didn’t know what activity was coming next. His teachers developed visual cues for him, like a pictorial time line of the school day. I also picked him up early from school until after Christmas, which pulled him out of the end-of-school rush and a difficult transition to home. In addition, the school district hired an aide just for him during the three weeks right before Christmas. He’s now been mainstreamed and on most days is behaving pretty well.

posted by Stahlkes @ 2:01 PM