Epiphany School of Global Studies -

Students in Kindergarten through second grade are enrolled in a 50% Spanish immersion program. These students’ minds are constantly growing and being challenged as they spend half their school day in a Spanish-speaking classroom and half their day in an English-speaking classroom. Children are learning to read, write, speak, and listen in two different languages simultaneously.

The research on early bilingual education clearly demonstrates myriad lifelong benefits from this approach to learning. The “bilingual brain” is more adept at problem-solving, understanding math concepts, logical thinking, reading comprehension, and memory. Our K-2 Spanish classes are taught by native Spanish speakers, which means students also have the opportunity to learn about a variety of Hispanic cultures. This cultural awareness further enhances the school’s ability to develop globally aware citizens starting with our youngest Falcons. Beginning in third grade, students continue developing their bilingualism during daily Spanish classes also taught by native speakers.

The English Language Arts program in the Lower School is highly engaging and integrates reading, spelling, writing, grammar, listening, and speaking skills. By integrating these skills, students learn that reading, writing, listening, and speaking are all ways of communicating ideas. Communication is, after all, the ultimate goal of academic instruction in the language arts. Additionally, in grades K-2, students receive explicit phonics instruction on a daily basis. This phonetic focus gives students the power to decode words in the English language by applying a simple equation of one sound for each letter.

Current brain research strongly supports the use of phonics-based instruction with continuous practice to develop decoding automaticity and fluency. Once students have mastered decoding, they are then able to more fully concentrate on comprehending what they are hearing or reading. As students progress through the Lower School and have mastered basic comprehension skills, attention turns to developing critical thinking, inferencing, and making connections to other texts, personal experiences, and the world beyond the classroom wall. All students, regardless of preferred learning styles, are given many ways to practice skills and are repeatedly exposed at all grade levels to the most important concepts in language arts.