Hola, espanol

By Emily Richmond

Thursday, June 5, 2003 | 11:13 a.m.

As the final moments of the school year ticked away Wednesday at Walker International School in Henderson, kindergarten students signed each other's yearbooks, snacked on pretzels and chattered busily in Spanish.

When the school year began, none of the Walker kindergarteners knew "hola" from "adios." But now they are able to read, write simple sentences, follow instructions as well as ask and answer questions in both English and Spanish, teacher Shanae Plaisted said.

Walker, which opened in the fall, is the first of its kind in the Clark County School District. Based on the European system of language immersion, the kindergarten students divided their days between English-only and Spanish-only classrooms.

While other Clark County schools may have a single classroom dedicated to immersion studies, Walker is the only campus where every child participates.

"It's the only way to learn," Plaisted, a first-year teacher, said. "I am very proud of all of them. They have been wonderful students."

Plaisted's pupils appeared comfortable with their second language Wednesday.

"Esta mal, el order (the order is wrong)," said Dakota Jones, when asked to read a grouping of Spanish sentence flashcards.

After rearranging the cards into the correct order to form a story, he read them -- flawlessly.

The initiative wouldn't work without the full-day schedule, Principal Alan Bowman said. At Walker classes run from 9 a.m. to 3:20 p.m. -- that's compared to the district-wide standard of about two and a half hours for most kindergarten programs.

"Every school in Clark County should have a program like this," said Yolanda Gibson, whose daughter Vanessa is in the Spanish immersion kindergarten. "In just about every other country children learn a second and even a third language, it's automatic. It's time for the United States to start catching up."

The school plans to add one grade each year to the immersion program, with the debut class of kindergarteners moving on to the first grade in the fall, Bowman said.

Unlike a magnet program where students from throughout the district apply to participate, all of Walker's kindergarteners were zoned for the school. While some parents expressed concerns about the program in the fall, no one asked to zoned out and all but three children will be returning for first grade in the fall, Bowman said.

The school also gets frequent calls from parents seeking zoning variances into the program but Walker is already over its projected enrollment, Bowman said.

Theresa Renner admits she was one of those nervous parents when she found out that her daughter, Carly, was zoned for Walker. Carly, like all but three of the school's kindergarteners, comes from a household where no Spanish is spoken.

"I had my concerns about just dropping her into a classroom where she didn't understand a word," Renner said. "But from the first day Carly just came home glowing. She absolutely loves it."

In the hopes of keeping up, Renner has begun studying Spanish herself with the help of CDs and some tutoring -- from her 5-year-old daughter.

"She corrects me when I stumble through the books she brings home," Renner said. "Her accent is amazing. The teachers tell me she'll be better than them someday because she started so young."

The Walker students aren't just getting a head start on their pronunciation skills. Studies show children who study a second language score higher on standardized tests, demonstrate better problem-solving skills and are more likely succeed in school overall.

Given the ever-growing Hispanic population of Clark County -- and the United States -- Spanish was a sensible choice for the district's first immersion kindergarten, said Professor George Urioste, chair of the Linguistic Studies Committee at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Younger children have an easier time learning a second language than adults and are less likely to speak with a detectable accent. But the benefits expand beyond academic success, Urioste said.

"The acquisition of another language gives you a new vision of the world," he said. "It's about broadening your perspective of the world and its possibilities."

That world view is part of Walker's overall philosophy, said Annette Smith, the school's assistant principal and coordinator of the immersion program.

While the kindergarten classes were learning Spanish, the rest of the students at the Scholar Street campus were engrossed in global studies, including economics, geography and immigration patterns, Smith said.

"We want them to leave here with a more in-depth understanding of other countries and cultures, and prepare them to be thoughtful, compassionate world citizens," Smith said.

As school administrators look ahead to building on the program's successful first year, Bowman said he's already debating what language should be the next added to Walker's immersion offerings.

"I'm leaning toward Mandarin," Bowman said.