Spanish Grove Academy is a dual language Montessori preschool in Stone Oak. Children from 6 weeks through Pre-K move between two languages all day, guided by teachers who each speak only one of them.
It is the language one of her teachers speaks to her all morning, while she pours water and builds the pink tower. Not a lesson on Tuesdays.
Infant, Toddler and Primary Curiosity Studios. Every room runs the same two languages, so nothing restarts when she moves up.
North East ISD runs balanced dual language elementary. So do we, down to the reading programme. Kindergarten is a continuation, not a reset.
Most parents notice it at home before they notice it here. You ask something in English and she answers in Spanish, without stopping to translate.
Spanish Grove Academy, 22215 Wilderness Oak, San Antonio, TX 78258. Monday to Friday, 7am to 6pm.
Tour four bilingual preschools in San Antonio and you will hear one word covering three very different arrangements. Nobody is being dishonest. The vocabulary is just loose. It is worth knowing which one you are standing in.
Thirty minutes, once or twice a week, inside an otherwise English day. Children come home with colours, numbers and a song about the days of the week. That is vocabulary. It is not a second language.
Ninety percent or more of the day in Spanish, with English introduced slowly over the elementary years. Spanish arrives faster this way. English literacy waits its turn, on purpose.
Both languages carry real teaching, every day, from the first week. Neither one waits. A child builds vocabulary, and later literacy, in Spanish and English at the same time.
We should be straight about the trade. If your single goal is Spanish as fast as possible, an immersion programme will get you there sooner than we will. That is what the model is built for.
We chose the balanced model in 2010 and have not moved off it, for two reasons. Most families who walk through our door want both languages, not one at the cost of the other. And North East ISD runs balanced dual language in its elementary schools, so a child who leaves here walks into kindergarten already fluent in the shape of the day.
In each Curiosity Studio one guide speaks only Spanish to the children and another speaks only English. Neither translates for the other. If a child asks the Spanish guide a question in English, she answers in Spanish, and the child gets there anyway.
Children sort this out faster than adults expect. Within a few weeks a two year old will cross the room to the right adult depending on whether she wants agua or water. Nobody teaches her to do that. She works it out because the pattern holds every day.
The materials carry both languages, because they are the same materials. The pink tower is the torre rosa. The red rods are the barras rojas. The moveable alphabet has a ñ in it. Golden beads are counted as unidad, decena, centena, millar on one side of the room and unit, ten, hundred, thousand on the other, and a four year old will use whichever one matches the adult in front of her.
Pre-K adds Estrellita, the Spanish reading programme North East ISD uses in its own dual language classrooms. English literacy runs alongside it, not after it. This is the part that decides how kindergarten goes, and it is the part most preschools skip.
Our Spanish guides come from Latin America and bring their own countries into the room. Afternoons carry folklĂłrico, music, cooking and the geography of places our families actually come from. Children learn that Spanish belongs to real people in real places, which is a different lesson from learning that it belongs on a flashcard.
“Won’t two languages confuse her?”
It is almost always the first thing a parent asks, usually about halfway down the hall, and usually a little apologetically. It is a fair question and it deserves a real answer rather than a reassurance.
Two things happen that parents mistake for confusion. The first is the quiet stretch. A child who has just started will listen for weeks before she produces anything in the new language. That is not a stall. It is the same order every baby learns a first language in, understanding well before speaking, and it is easier to sit with once you know to expect it.
The second is mixing. She puts a Spanish word in the middle of an English sentence and you brace. What she has actually done is reach for the better word and find it in the other language. Bilingual adults do this constantly, all over this city. It is a sign the two systems are both live, not a sign they are tangled.
The worry underneath the question is usually about English falling behind. In a heavily immersive programme there can be a stretch where English vocabulary trails, and it closes in early elementary. In a balanced model there is much less room for it to open in the first place, because English is being taught properly every single day. That is one of the reasons we run the model we do.
In twenty five years I have not met the confused bilingual child parents are picturing. I have met a great many three year olds who know exactly which grown up to ask for a snack, and in which language.
Melissa Zamora, Head of Schools
San Antonio has good bilingual preschools that are not this one, and the honest thing is to tell you where the lines fall so you can rule us out quickly if we are the wrong fit.
We are not an immersion school. If you want the maximum possible Spanish and are comfortable with English arriving later, there are places in this city built for exactly that, and they will serve you better than we will.
We are not a language school. This is a Montessori environment first. Children choose their work, move at their own pace, and stay with the same guides across a three year age span. Spanish rides on top of that. If the Montessori part does not appeal to you, the bilingual part will not carry it.
We are not a drop in Spanish class. The model only works because it is every day, all day, with the same adults. Part time attendance blunts it. We will tell you that on the tour rather than after you enrol.
None of this reads the way it looks. Come between nine and eleven on a weekday, when the rooms are working, and watch which adult a child walks toward when she wants something. That will tell you more than this page can.
22215 Wilderness Oak
San Antonio, TX 78258
(210) 390-1470
stoneoak@edquisitive.com
Monday to Friday
7am to 6pm
6 weeks through Pre-K
Infant, Toddler and Primary
Cognia accredited
Texas Rising Star 4-Star
American Montessori Society
Open since 2010
Spanish Grove is the bilingual campus in the Edquisitive Montessori network. Our other three are Fair Oaks in the Boerne area, Northwest Military in Shavano Park, and Little Red Caboose near the Medical Center.
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