Spanish-English and Urdu-English programs coming to schools in Guilford County

HIGH POINT — Eyes focused on their papers, a class of Allen Jay Elementary kindergartners practiced their reading pronunciation last week. “Wuh-tuh-luh-suh,” they read aloud to themselves, connecting how letters look with the sounds they make.

Students at Allen Jay learn all the time in English, even though many are native speakers of Spanish, or Urdu, the main language of Pakistan.

Next year, though, Guilford County Schools will debut new dual-language programs at Allen Jay and Hunter Elementary in Greensboro. All rising kindergartners have the option to get half their lessons next year in a different language: Spanish at both schools and Urdu at Allen Jay. They plan to add first-grade the year after, and so on, so that children can progress through.

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