If my child does not learn to read in English until the first grade, will s/he catch up with American students who have started reading earlier?
Yes. Reading skills are transferable between Western languages and so those learned in French / Spanish transfer to English, and many (such as prediction, recognising references to prior information) are transferable between Western languages and Arabic / Chinese. As we use the Big Book approach in P5, and because the students are able to differentiate between the sub-skills associated with each language, they quickly and easily read in English as well as in their other first language programme.
