@gungasnake,
Obviously, you know nothing about language acquisition, linguistics, teaching, social classes and more.
First of all, many students who are raised in non-English speaking homes often learn to speak English fluently but may never learn how to read English.
Second, many of my students arrive at this college operating on what had been a third grade level at the elementary school I attended. My classmates and I learned to read and write easily using the traditional Catholic school method. I am fully aware of the fact that not everyone learns in the same way and I understand that many of the alternate methods of teaching reading and writing were developed to meet the needs of students whose learning styles vary from the norm. However, the see it/say it or whole word method lingers on, despite having demonstrated its failure. Diagramming sentences is no longer done but ought to be brought back because it is logical and visual. (The symbols used in Montessori schools would be a good substitute.)
Third, teaching Russian would involve teaching them a new alphabet. Horrendous!
Fourth, teaching them Latin would be a better route to mastering English. If fact, I would love to see all special needs kids begin Latin in fifth grade. Make that all students. However, my daughter who teaches French and Spanish (and who speaks and reads six languages) says that a competent French or Spanish teacher, using linguistics, can accomplish what a good teacher can with Latin.
Fifth, an insufficient grounding in one's native language can and does keep people from learning other languages, which leads to sixth, the fact that some people are incapable of learning a second language.
