Is it okay that my five year old daughter is not using articles with her nouns at this point in her Spanish?
I have been teaching her Spanish for the past year and she is now learning it in kindergarten. I put her in a charter school so that she could learn Spanish. 
What should i expect of her Spanish?
10 Answers
You just have to relax. People get all these crazy ideas like "my kid has to be perfect" or "my kid makes mistakes and that's bad." Well, both of those ways of thinking are absurd and serve no purpose. Let your kid make mistakes. That's how we all learn. Your kid included. So she doesn't use articles. So she does some other thing wierd. So what? Kids who speak whatever language,and if you haven't noticed, make up thier own rules...but with time come into line with the rest of us. She probably speaks spanish well enough to be understood, and with the fullness of time she will fill in the blanks as she grows. Just relax. Don't focus on what she is doing wrong...focus on the wonderful little creature she is. Give her encouragement and let her be who she is...warts and all. In this way, when she reaches adulthhood, she will be perfectly normal, with good self esteem, and won't get freaked out if she makes a mistake. 
Why not simply apply the same rules/process that you use with respect to her English? When she makes mistakes in English, do you correct her or do you say "Oh, that's cute. She'll grow out of it."? Is there some reason for taking a different approach to her Spanish competency than to her English?
I think learning multiple languages at a young age is a good thing. Fluency in English usually doesn't come until after age 12, which is too late to ever sound like a native speaker for most people. When I was in school, I met someone who had started to learn 3 languages before age 5, and had lived in countries where they were spoken at various times through his teens. Not only was he fluent enough to fool native speakers, they could identify his regional accent precisely.
Assuming english to be her native tongue, Im going to go out on a limb here and say it took her more than year to learn that. Relax even native spanish speaking kids arent fluent at 5. I think its great that she has someone at home that is able to guide her in a second language, its not just something she uses at school and cant practice at home in daily life. Myself as an example.......Im 46 just starting college and trying to learn spanish grammer, what Im learning at this point has no real bearing in my everyday life so I dont really have a practice outlet, or daily things to apply it to.....Im having a tough time with it. As a child I was in Germany as a military brat......the german I learned was used and useful on a daily basis..it was much easier to learn and apply. keep doing what you're doing, she will progress fine in her language studies!
There are a lot of bilingual kids around here who speak Spanish at home and English at school, and it is common in Japan and Europe to learn English starting in elementary school. When I was a kid, we learned elementary Spanish in grammar school (we said the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish in 6th grade), but I moved to another school system soon thereafter and ended up taking French in high school since it was the only language offered.
This is just my opinion, but don't you think that she should learn English fluently before she starts on Spanish, it looks like that would confuse a young child very easy.
Well I agree on that part, but still maybe it would work, I just didn't know.
I've resorted to using a shock collar on my kids when they make mistakes like that. Seems to work. They learn really fast the importance of articles. Just kidding. I think it is amazaing your child can speak in Spanish. Mine are at the age where they "hate" it. So basically I'm jealous of you!
I hope you can find a direct answer to your question here sunshinzmomm, but if you can't, I recommend posting in a developmental psychology forum. Here's one I found in a Google search: http://www.thepsychologyforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=11
Please relax. I've taught for over 36 years, and have seen a lot of students who are scared to make a mistake because their parents put so much pressure on them. I do understand your concern, however; my husband and I spoke to our children in both Spanish and English from the cradle on. When I was freaked about what seemed to be slow language development, the pediatrician explained to me that kids who are bilingual may appear to be slower than their peers, but in reality they know the same number of words, it just seems like fewer words because they tend to speak half in one language and half in the other. It will all sort out. If your daughter is still omitting articles when she is 10 years old, maybe you could be worried. Please relax! There are so many more things that are worthy of your attention. Enjoy your daughter, love her, listen to her, continue to provide her with opportunities...she will be fine. Take it from an old mother...
