This weekend marked 6 months since Solomon came to live with us in the United States. It is amazing the progress he has made in so many different areas during this time. Reflecting back on the first several months home, I can see how far we have come. There were some rough moments! However, our prayers were answered and Solomon's wounds have slowly been healed.
One of the areas where we have seen great improvement is in language development. It is incredible how quickly these young children can pick up a language when fully immersed in it. Solomon can now understand most of what we say and we are to the point where we can have conversations with him. Granted - many of these are very basic as his vocabulary is small. We know that it is going to take years for him to catch up to the language proficiency of his peers. To give you an idea, read these statistics which I found from an article on older internationally adopted children:
"The typical 6 year old understands over 20,000 English words (Owens, 2000). A 5 year old child adopted from another country would need to learn an average of 54 new words every day in order to fully catch up in language comprehension abilities by age 6. If the catch up timeframe is stretched out to 2 years, the adopted 5 year old would still need to learn an average of 27 new words every day to fully catch up by age 7. However, while the adopted child has been playing catch-up, his 6 year old friends have also added an average of 5,000 words to their vocabulary. By age 7, the typical child understands 25,000 words. In order to fully catch up within a 2 year window, the adopted 5 year old needs to learn an average of 34 words per day. In summary, expecting older adopted children to develop proficient English language skills within 1 or 2 years of adoption is unrealistic."
School is also going really well. He is in 2nd grade and fully immersed into the regular classroom. He does very well in Math and Spelling where complete understanding of English is not always necessary. As for reading and phonics, he is hanging in there. He is certainly below grade level, but improving weekly. His school does not have ESL services, but he does meet with the Kindergarten teacher after school for private tutoring. He has lots of friends at school, too. His best friend is a boy in his class who was also adopted from Ethiopia! Love how God does things like that!
Sibling rivalry has settled down quite a bit. We dealt with some of that from both ends in the beginning, but their love for each other has really grown over the last few months. In fact, they are now sharing a room and beg to sleep together in bed nightly. It is heartwarming seeing the love that they share.
Overall - we are loving life as a family of four and we are looking forward to what God has in store for us in the future.
One of the areas where we have seen great improvement is in language development. It is incredible how quickly these young children can pick up a language when fully immersed in it. Solomon can now understand most of what we say and we are to the point where we can have conversations with him. Granted - many of these are very basic as his vocabulary is small. We know that it is going to take years for him to catch up to the language proficiency of his peers. To give you an idea, read these statistics which I found from an article on older internationally adopted children:
"The typical 6 year old understands over 20,000 English words (Owens, 2000). A 5 year old child adopted from another country would need to learn an average of 54 new words every day in order to fully catch up in language comprehension abilities by age 6. If the catch up timeframe is stretched out to 2 years, the adopted 5 year old would still need to learn an average of 27 new words every day to fully catch up by age 7. However, while the adopted child has been playing catch-up, his 6 year old friends have also added an average of 5,000 words to their vocabulary. By age 7, the typical child understands 25,000 words. In order to fully catch up within a 2 year window, the adopted 5 year old needs to learn an average of 34 words per day. In summary, expecting older adopted children to develop proficient English language skills within 1 or 2 years of adoption is unrealistic."
School is also going really well. He is in 2nd grade and fully immersed into the regular classroom. He does very well in Math and Spelling where complete understanding of English is not always necessary. As for reading and phonics, he is hanging in there. He is certainly below grade level, but improving weekly. His school does not have ESL services, but he does meet with the Kindergarten teacher after school for private tutoring. He has lots of friends at school, too. His best friend is a boy in his class who was also adopted from Ethiopia! Love how God does things like that!
Sibling rivalry has settled down quite a bit. We dealt with some of that from both ends in the beginning, but their love for each other has really grown over the last few months. In fact, they are now sharing a room and beg to sleep together in bed nightly. It is heartwarming seeing the love that they share.
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| Art & Soul Photography |
Overall - we are loving life as a family of four and we are looking forward to what God has in store for us in the future.
