A child's first-ever introduction to school is a pretty big deal and at Parsons pre-K in Garland ISD they're the experts at it.
Students are often learning the basics, numbers, letters, colors in two languages at the same time.
"It's like building two houses at the same time, it might take a little longer but in the end, they wind up having two assets there," said Dr. Julie Xu, instructional specialist for Garland ISD.
For years, they've taught English and Spanish hand and hand. It's been highly successful, and now Garland ISD is expanding the program.
"The Vietnamese language is the third most spoken language in our district and we are serving our community and the children in the population of our district," said Xu who heads up the Vietnamese early learning program.
If you're thinking 'wow, these guys can teach my kid a world language before kindergarten,' don't get too excited. The program is for families that speak Vietnamese at home already, to help them prepare to learn English.
"It's fun to see with these children when you speak to them in English they turn on their English language hats and then when you to speak to them in Vietnamese they'll switch it over. It's no confusion whatsoever with the languages," said Xu.
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The first year of the program saw many empty seats, like all pre-Ks this year as parents kept their babies home during the pandemic, but the more families who see the learning take place here, the more those empty chairs, start to dwindle.
The program has been highly successful for Spanish speakers and Garland ISD is putting their bets down they can do it again. Registration is going on this week as part of Garland ISD's Choice of School Program.
Choice of school allows any student to choose which school they want to go to in the district. So if you're zone to one school, but rather another, you can make that choice.
Students can choose Parsons pre-Ks Vietnamese program and choose from many others by going to garlandisd.net/choice.
