Learning English Overseas!

One of the blessings/curses of living in a foreign country is the education for our children.  I am a cup is half full type of person, so let’s look at the positives first……

1. The kids get to meet other nationalities compared to the average public in America,

2. There are a lot school holiday’s so traveling is easier,

3. The kids pick up a bit of a second/third language without even really trying.

 NOW the downside of a foreign education……

1, Homework is not really done (OK, I know for some of you this is a positive!),

2. The standards of education at least in Poland is below that of American standards,

3.  Language barrier at times between us and the teaching staff. For example, a right angle is an angle that is 90 degrees, not any angle that is facing right!!) (yes, I am not making this up, this happened last week!)

One thing that I did today is give Lydia (10th grade) and Ella (1st grade) a test.  The test is called, DORA – Diagnostic Online Reading Assessment.  I gave this test to the girls to see where they are in their reading skills.   Then at the end of the school year (June) I will have them retake it to make sure they are staying on tract since Ella is going to an International Polish school and Lydia is doing high school online.  

Ella took her test first.  She did not want to do it at first but then when she saw a talking monkey, well the rest is history!

Here is a screen shot of one part of the test.  They did several different types of little quizzes with her.  The animations and voice of the monkey kept her engrossed the whole 20 minutes it took her to take it.

After she finished the test, I was able to immediately to download a report of how she did. There were a couple of different versions to download from short 1 page to a detailed 18 page report.  She was graded in 7 different areas in Graphophonic (Letters and Sounds) and  Semantic (Meaning Making).  Ella scored as high as 4th grade in one area and but in other areas she is at a kindergarten level.   So what does mean to us?  That since English grammar is not a priority here at the International School in the lower levels, we will have to start doing a homeschooling curriculum to help bring this up to par and keep her at the level she should be at for 1st grade.

Lydia, well let’s say, there were no monkeys on her test, and we can defiantly tell she has had a LOVE for reading since she was little. We did learn that she uses spell check way too often! (I am glad I didn’t take this test because there were words that I didn’t know what they meant let alone spell!)

So for $35 for 2 tests it is well worth to see where my girls are at in their education.   Next week we will be taking the math version of the test to see how the girls are doing.   For more information on these tests here is a link to the site…http://www.letsgolearn.com

So as you can see it is never a dull day for me in Poland!