My daughter came to our family from Guatemala at the age of 10 1/2. We just celebrated her 3rd year in our family. She had not gone to school at all in Guatemala and really did not even know the basics that we teach our toddlers, like counting and colors. She could count to 10 in spanish and knew the basic colors but didn't really know much beyond that. It would take a VERY long post to tell you how I have worked with her schooling, but in a nutshell...she was placed in 3rd grade 4 weeks after she came home and worked with an ESL teacher in her classroom. Since she had never been in school she first had to learn how to cooperate with others, play and just the basics of school. That summer we had her in Montessori. The second year she was in 4th grade, ESL part time and Individual education part time. She still had very basic english so she had to have everything explained to her individually. The class moved too fast for her to keep up. For 5th grade we homeschooled her part time and she went to school part time. We felt like she was falling through the cracks even though the school seemed to think she was doing fine. We started with 1st grade math and english books and worked our way up. By the end of the year she was easily doing 4th grade work with the exception of being able to read some of the words. This year, she is in 6th grade. Her teacher specializes in Individual education. She does some 6th grade work and some individual education work. We work with her a couple hours a night on her homework. She is by no means caught up to her classmates but doing amazingly well for not having a formal (or informal) education until age 10 1/2. The one thing that I have to say is that you have to stay in constant contact with the teachers and there is never a day without having to help with some homework. Her english language has taken off this year, alot of "experts" say it takes about 3 years for them to really be able to understand a second language without having to translate it into their native language first. It has been a real eye opener for me to have to be a constant advocate for my child at school. When Johana first came home everything was so new to her that she would get overwhelmed easily. If I had to do it over again and could I think I would homeschool her half days from the very beginning. I think that full days of school when she didn't understand anything was exhausting for her. OK..I'll stop for now, I could go on forever. If I can be of any help to those of you bringing home your kids you can PM me. I also think that if you have specific questions that you would like to ask her she would be glad to answer them. She likes to read theses posts and often has a comment or two. You just have to remember her comments are coming from a teenage perspective
Lisa