Raising Bilingual Kids: How the Right School Makes All the Difference
Most schools force multilingual families into a tradeoff: focus on English so your child keeps up, or hold onto your home language and risk falling behind. At Novastar Academy, a tuition-free K-8 school in Centennial, Colorado, you don't have to choose. ELD support (English Language Development) builds English fluency, and Novastar’s World Language program builds academic fluency in your home language at the same time.
Why Home Language Loss Happens
Here's what often happens when multilingual kids enter a traditional school environment: the English-only classroom becomes the dominant world, homework is in English, their friends speak English. The message to these children is that English is what matters here. Over time, children begin to pull away from their home language. They respond to their parents in English, forget vocabulary, and the fluency they were born into starts to fade.
This is called subtractive bilingualism, and it's common.
It also works against kids: students who maintain their home language tend to do better in both languages, not worse.
How Novastar Supports Your Home Language
English Language Development
At Novastar, students are grouped by ability and skill, not age or grade, so an English learner isn't stuck keeping pace with a class that has moved on. With a 1:10 student-to-teacher ratio, teachers can tell when a struggle is about language, not the concept, and adjust accordingly.
World Languages
Most schools treat world languages as a once-a-week enrichment class. Novastar treats it as an academic fluency goal, starting at age 2 in the Novastar Kids Co preschool program and continuing through Novastar Academy. Multilingual staff mean parents can talk to teachers directly, no translation needed. Instruction is offered in Spanish, Arabic, Ukrainian, and Russian, the languages of Novastar's actual community. The long-term target is the Seal of Biliteracy, a credential that signals real fluency to high schools and colleges.
Start Early at Novastar Kids Co
Language acquisition peaks young. Novastar Kids Co, serving infants through PreK at the Aurora campus, begins Spanish, Russian, and Ukrainian instruction at age 2. Kids who start there and move into Novastar Academy for kindergarten arrive with a head start already built, and the transition is seamless, with both programs running under the Novastar umbrella.
Ready to see it for yourself? Schedule a tour of Novastar's campus, meet our multilingual staff, and see firsthand why families across the Denver metro are choosing Novastar. Enrollment for 2026-27 is open now, completely tuition-free with full-time, hybrid, and homeschool options available.
About Novastar:
Novastar Kids Co and Novastar Academy together serve families from infancy through 8th grade across two campuses in the greater Denver area. Novastar Kids Co offers daycare, preschool, and PreK at our Aurora campus, building the foundation for every child's learning journey. Novastar Academy is a Hybrid Learning K-8 school in Englewood, combining personalized, mastery-based learning with a STEAM-focused curriculum, completely tuition-free. Through flexible learning options including a full-time campus, online & homeschool programs and hybrid learning with flexible schedules, Novastar Academy prepares students to thrive as creative, curious, and confident learners. With a low student-to-teacher ratio, state-of-the-art facilities, and a rigorous curriculum, we are redefining what education can look like from day one through 8th grade. Get to know us on social media @novastar.education and on the web at novastar.education–Join Us!