Language plan not working? How to review it

A slip is information about the plan, not a verdict on your family. Schedules change, children grow, someone moves, a sibling arrives. King and Mackey, in The Bilingual Edge, say of family disruption that a pause is not a failure and that it is a natural moment to revise the plan instead of dropping it. So the useful step is a review: find what changed, count what is happening now, and reset the plan to fit.

Start with what changed

The book lists the kinds of change that disturb a language routine: divorce, a move, job loss, a new sibling, illness. Its advice is to lower the anxiety, treat the change as a moment to revise the plan, and look for new resources in the new situation. The authors add that their suggestions may do wonders or may do next to nothing, and that finding what works can take experimenting. That fits a review: you are testing a plan, not passing an exam.

Write down what changed in the weeks before things slipped. It may be a new work schedule, a new school year, a person who used to speak the language with your child and no longer does, or your child's own mood about the language. Each item is a reason the old plan may no longer fit. One example from the book, as the authors report it: when an older child starts school, that child brings more of the majority language home, and the school hours also free up time for one-on-one talk with a younger sibling.

Count what is happening now

The plan is what you intend. The audit is what happens. The Family Language Audit takes the hours each caregiver spends with your child each week and the language used, and for a two-language household reports the heritage-language share of waking hours against two lines: the 80% target King and Mackey give for the early years, and a 20% line from one study that is debated. Two cautions are on the page. King and Mackey state the 80% line as a share of the child's interaction, while the audit measures hours out of the child's waking hours as an approximation, and the waking-hours figure is the app's own estimate. And if your logged hours add up to more than the child is awake in a week, the audit shows an amber warning that some rows probably overlap. It does not rescale anything, and because it has no clock times, total hours are all it can check. If you track a third language, the audit stops using the 80% line, which is King and Mackey's figure for two languages. It gives their even-share rule of thumb and the per-language breakdown instead. Log a typical week as it is now, not as you wish it were. The gap between the two is the information you came for.

Re-run the plan for the child you have now

The plan generator groups children into four age bands: 0 to 2, 3 to 5, 6 to 9, and 10 and over. The mix of activities changes by band. The minutes you enter should be what your family can really do; the generator treats anything under 5 as 5.

ILLUSTRATION, not data about real families: I ran the plan code with the same inputs at four ages (30 minutes a day, goal of everyday speaking, some current exposure, one heritage-language parent at home). The minutes per activity came out like this:

• Age 2: talk 17, songs 8, reading 3, family ritual 2.
• Age 4: talk 14, reading 7, songs 5, family ritual 4.
• Age 7: talk 13, reading 9, structured practice 4, family ritual 3, songs 1.
• Age 11: talk 11, reading 9, structured practice 7, family ritual 3.

The pattern is that talk and songs shrink while reading and structured practice grow. These weights are the app's own design choices and no source we read tests them. They are a reason to re-run the plan after a birthday that crosses a band, not proof that the new mix works better.

Reset the 30-day marker

Each plan comes with a 30-day milestone that depends on your goal. For everyday speaking at age 3 or older, it is that your child starts a short exchange in the language without being prompted. For reading and writing, it is recognizing 10 to 15 written words. For connection with a relative, it is a standing weekly call that happens without reminders. For school support, it is school vocabulary showing up at home. For ages 0 to 2 with most goals, it is responding to simple instructions without translation. These markers are the app's own and are not from a study. Use one as a check for the next month, and if it is not met, read that as a signal to change the minutes or the activities.

A review you can do in one evening

1. Write down what changed since the plan was working.
2. Log one typical week in the audit.
3. Enter today's age and the minutes you really have in the plan generator.
4. Pick one 30-day marker and a date to look again.

The plan generator and the audit are free on every tier, according to the pricing page, and need no account to start. How often to repeat this is your call. Every few months is our suggestion, because ages and routines shift on that scale, and no source we read compares different review schedules.

What is still unknown

• How often a family should review a plan. The sources read do not test it.
• Whether shifting the activity mix with age improves outcomes. The weights are the app's choice.
• Whether a given plan will bring the language back. Nothing here predicts a result for your child.