Early foreign language choice at Rosetta Stone

That means changing how Rosetta Stone teaches languages, he said. Until now, Rosetta Stone offered foreign languages to students as young as age 2 through its Montessori program, which serves children ages 2-5.

But Rosetta Stone required these youngsters to switch languages after three years: tykes taking Spanish from preschool to 2nd grade were assigned to French classes later and vice versa for the youngest French students.

Parents were concerned that students weren't progressing toward fluency. They were learning more about French or Spanish societies and customs than how to speak, write and understand the languages, said Suzanne Tosolini, a Hyde Park parent of first- and fourth-grade sons.

"Children are so much more global than we were when we were young," she said. "The parents were saying we need be more focused on fluency than on cultural immersion, so this communication can really happen."

Find more information, please connect to http://www.rsllshop.com/

Decades of education research show that younger children learn and develop language fluency faster than older students, Wilson said. "Giving children this early in life this kind of exposure is important to their development."

By contrast, fewer than 5 percent of elementary students in Ohio, Kentucky and across the United States have access to a foreign language program. The average high school student studies a foreign language for only two years.

The changes in Rosetta Stone's language offerings will require alterations to the daily class schedules, but other things won't change, Wilson said.

For example, every sixth-grader will still take Latin and seventh-graders can choose to take Mandarin, while still taking Spanish or French. Students will still be able to switch language choices.

Rosetta Stone enrolls about 675 students. Tuition ranges from $3,650 a year for toddlers attending half-day twice a week, to $18,200 for high school seniors at Summit's Upper School. The new school year begins Aug. 23.