Some parents of dual language students have had to adjust to the fact their children’s knowledge base has exceeded their own in certain areas.

“I think one dad put it best; he said, ‘My kid is getting to where she knows more than I do,’” Kilgore ISD English Second Language Director Dan Stanley said. “I’ve heard from other directors, and they’ve said, you get to that point and it’s really hard to help out because now you’re at a point where you’ve got to help everybody. That’s why we’ve kind of come to realize we’ve got to have more parent meetings, we’ve got to communicate a little bit more so that we can help parents.”

Part of that help is coming in the form of resources and computer and phone applications to help parents with vocabulary, pronunciation and translations.

The second grade dual language class began in Kindergarten during the 2014-2015 school year as the first two-way dual language class at KISD. The two-way program means the class is made up of half Spanish-native and half English-native speakers learning a second language together at the same time.

As students continue learning their second language as the program continues, Stanley said, he encouraged parents to think about their children when they first began talking in their first language.

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