!!! Immigrant Children Vs. Native Canadian Academic Performance !!!

[saki]

Immigrant Children Vs. Native Canadian Academic Performance

There are approximately 200,000 people migrate to Canada each year. About 240,000- 265,000 immigrants had been accepted in Canada last 2010.One third of the total immigrants' ages 25 years and below.

 
Compared to adult, immigrant children were the ones facing a great challenge in terms of adapting to their new environment. The atmosphere in their new school as well as the curriculum is one of the new challenges they have to face. Another adjustment they have to make is the cultural values and the behaviour of the children they will be interacting with which is far different from the culture they grew up with.

How immigrants cope?
The government of Canada develops a special program known as the SWIS (Settlement Workers in Schools) which orients the immigrants to the system of Ontario schools. One of the goals is also to provide referrals to various community support services that will help them settle successfully.

Immigrants and education
Most of the parents opted to migrate to Canada with one ultimate goal- to provide a bright future to their children. Canada is known in having one of the best educational systems to offer. According to Paul Cappon, president and CEO of the Canadian Council on Learning “The strength of Canada's education system is that we have one of world's most equitable systems because we do a better job of integrating immigrant students than other countries” The students are performing well in school in the aspect of reading, math, and science regardless of their socio-economic status.

How are immigrant children doing in school as compared to native Canadians?
A survey and a Peabody picture vocabulary test were conducted by the NLSCY that showed children's performance varies on their economic status. Children who are ranked above middle class tend to perform higher than that that is ranked below the middle class.

Another reason is that the children's performance varies on the parent's mother tongue. Children whose mother tongue is neither English nor French faced significant disadvantage in the first years of school, in which their performance in reading and mathematics are 20% lower and their writing skills are 30% lower compared to children with Canadian-born parents. Their performance however would improve upon reaching the age of 10-11, and they would perform as well as their native Canadian counterparts.

Immigrant children in Canada who have been trailing behind their native Canadian counterparts would make an effort to make up for the gap between them in the academic performance. They have managed to take away the gap between them and the native Canadians in their language skills as well as their school performance in the growing years of their stay in the country.

 It would show that setting a good foundation in the yearly years of their lives is essential in equipping them with the skills they will need as they progress through school and later on to the real world.

[explorer101]

I dont know how this study arrived at the figures but I can tell you what I have seen and gone through.
My kid completed his 5th grade back home and got admission in 6th grade in Canada in Sep 2010. Back home he was getting excellent grades and was out performing in education, sports, extra-curricular activies etc

PROBLEM FACED BY MY KID :
>>> problem in understand the teachers way of teaching.
>>> problem in adapting to school atmosphere.


PROBLEM FACED BY ME :
>>> No books, no syllabus and no prior knowledge of Canadian education system followed in school.
>>> Not knowing the style, expectation of teachers.

So, initially I was no help to my kid. I visited the school twice for interview and saw that the performance of my kid had fallen a lot. No homework and nothing much in classwork I was unable to asses the situation. I became frustrated by all this, but was looking for the way for turnaround.

WHAT I DID :
1.   Kept encouraging my kid to do better.
2.   Bought some books for 6th grade from market and told my kid to start with that. Nothing to do means read these books.
3.   Brought variety of books including comics from public library and encourage my kid to go through it.
4.   Helped kid to do french homework.
5.   Assisted him in getting project ( power point presentation ) work done.
6.   Borrowed books from english, SST teacher. Others said "NO, CANT BE DONE, EVEN WE DONT HAVE BOOKS".
7.   Gone through the class test sheets with the teachers and understood the style of questioning.
8.   Litrature book being taught in english class, I borrowed from public library and my kid gone through in advance the entire book 3-4 times and it helped him in class.
9.   With no homework and not much in class made by kid to spend some time on these websites :-

http://www.linktolearning.com/
http://www1.teachertube.com/
http://www.eqao.com/Parents/Elementary/036/BookletsandGuides.aspx?Lang=E&gr=036&yr=06

These websites contains of full course of students of peel board and are very exciting. My kid started spending hours and hours on it. If you go through it you would find that kids can really play and study here.

END RESULT  :
>>> My kid has now reached the level of A- and I expect by the end of this session he would be A+.
My plan is now to put him in neighbourhood sports activity so that he can pick up gome goods sports skills like ice skating, basketball  also. Summer time would be swimming time.  I must tell you people that any money spent on these activities are deductable from Income for tax purpose.    

So dont get bogged down by seeing the outcome of report. Believe in you, your kid and do your best.
If you go to IB and IBT school program , you would find that 99% students there are non natives.  So, I believe that ir respective of the above mentioned study,  immigrant's kids would not lag behind native's kids in education. WE ARE THE  BEST OTHERWISE WE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN HERE.

[saki]

Thanks for sharing your experience explorer, i know these studies sometimes does not show the real facts and its people like you who can tell what problem exactly you are facing or have faced.

Thanks once again

Cheers
Saki

[igbehinadara]

Saki and Explorer thanks.


Ig

[Mezo2009]

 Well said Explorer, and nice efforts to put.

You did great job. Thanks for sharing such experience.

Cheers

Mezo

I dont know how this study arrived at the figures but I can tell you what I have seen and gone through.
My kid completed his 5th grade back home and got admission in 6th grade in Canada in Sep 2010. Back home he was getting excellent grades and was out performing in education, sports, extra-curricular activies etc

PROBLEM FACED BY MY KID :
>>> problem in understand the teachers way of teaching.
>>> problem in adapting to school atmosphere.


PROBLEM FACED BY ME :
>>> No books, no syllabus and no prior knowledge of Canadian education system followed in school.
>>> Not knowing the style, expectation of teachers.

So, initially I was no help to my kid. I visited the school twice for interview and saw that the performance of my kid had fallen a lot. No homework and nothing much in classwork I was unable to asses the situation. I became frustrated by all this, but was looking for the way for turnaround.

WHAT I DID :
1.   Kept encouraging my kid to do better.
2.   Bought some books for 6th grade from market and told my kid to start with that. Nothing to do means read these books.
3.   Brought variety of books including comics from public library and encourage my kid to go through it.
4.   Helped kid to do french homework.
5.   Assisted him in getting project ( power point presentation ) work done.
6.   Borrowed books from english, SST teacher. Others said "NO, CANT BE DONE, EVEN WE DONT HAVE BOOKS".
7.   Gone through the class test sheets with the teachers and understood the style of questioning.
8.   Litrature book being taught in english class, I borrowed from public library and my kid gone through in advance the entire book 3-4 times and it helped him in class.
9.   With no homework and not much in class made by kid to spend some time on these websites :-

http://www.linktolearning.com/
http://www1.teachertube.com/
http://www.eqao.com/Parents/Elementary/036/BookletsandGuides.aspx?Lang=E&gr=036&yr=06

These websites contains of full course of students of peel board and are very exciting. My kid started spending hours and hours on it. If you go through it you would find that kids can really play and study here.

END RESULT  :
>>> My kid has now reached the level of A- and I expect by the end of this session he would be A+.
My plan is now to put him in neighbourhood sports activity so that he can pick up gome goods sports skills like ice skating, basketball  also. Summer time would be swimming time.  I must tell you people that any money spent on these activities are deductable from Income for tax purpose.    

So dont get bogged down by seeing the outcome of report. Believe in you, your kid and do your best.
If you go to IB and IBT school program , you would find that 99% students there are non natives.  So, I believe that ir respective of the above mentioned study,  immigrant's kids would not lag behind native's kids in education. WE ARE THE  BEST OTHERWISE WE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN HERE.

[pittabread]

I dont know how this study arrived at the figures but I can tell you what I have seen and gone through.
My kid completed his 5th grade back home and got admission in 6th grade in Canada in Sep 2010. Back home he was getting excellent grades and was out performing in education, sports, extra-curricular activies etc

PROBLEM FACED BY MY KID :
>>> problem in understand the teachers way of teaching.
>>> problem in adapting to school atmosphere.


PROBLEM FACED BY ME :
>>> No books, no syllabus and no prior knowledge of Canadian education system followed in school.
>>> Not knowing the style, expectation of teachers.

So, initially I was no help to my kid. I visited the school twice for interview and saw that the performance of my kid had fallen a lot. No homework and nothing much in classwork I was unable to asses the situation. I became frustrated by all this, but was looking for the way for turnaround.

WHAT I DID :
1.   Kept encouraging my kid to do better.
2.   Bought some books for 6th grade from market and told my kid to start with that. Nothing to do means read these books.
3.   Brought variety of books including comics from public library and encourage my kid to go through it.
4.   Helped kid to do french homework.
5.   Assisted him in getting project ( power point presentation ) work done.
6.   Borrowed books from english, SST teacher. Others said "NO, CANT BE DONE, EVEN WE DONT HAVE BOOKS".
7.   Gone through the class test sheets with the teachers and understood the style of questioning.
8.   Litrature book being taught in english class, I borrowed from public library and my kid gone through in advance the entire book 3-4 times and it helped him in class.
9.   With no homework and not much in class made by kid to spend some time on these websites :-

http://www.linktolearning.com/
http://www1.teachertube.com/
http://www.eqao.com/Parents/Elementary/036/BookletsandGuides.aspx?Lang=E&gr=036&yr=06

These websites contains of full course of students of peel board and are very exciting. My kid started spending hours and hours on it. If you go through it you would find that kids can really play and study here.

END RESULT  :
>>> My kid has now reached the level of A- and I expect by the end of this session he would be A+.
My plan is now to put him in neighbourhood sports activity so that he can pick up gome goods sports skills like ice skating, basketball  also. Summer time would be swimming time.  I must tell you people that any money spent on these activities are deductable from Income for tax purpose.    

So dont get bogged down by seeing the outcome of report. Believe in you, your kid and do your best.
If you go to IB and IBT school program , you would find that 99% students there are non natives.  So, I believe that ir respective of the above mentioned study,  immigrant's kids would not lag behind native's kids in education. WE ARE THE  BEST OTHERWISE WE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN HERE.

you have made extra ordinary efforts for your kid but not everybody does.............