Not Lost in Translation

When seven-year-old Maya Rose Texara recently took a trip to Spain, the second grader acted as translator for her parents. You see, Maya has been enrolled in Rosedale Elementary’s Dual Immersion Program where students begin learning Spanish in kindergarten. Since she’s been in the program for two full years, Maya has become pretty fluent in Spanish. She reads Spanish at nearly a fourth-grade level and reads in English at the seventhgrade level. Maya is one smart cookie.

Her parents, Jake Texara, a social science teacher at Chico Senior High, and Elora Texara, director of after-school programs at Little Chico Creek Elementary, say Maya began talking before she was one and began reading at two years old. Her favorite work of fiction is the Percy Jackson five-book series, which took her about five weeks to read. “I like books about unicorns and magic, and my favorite book series is Percy Jackson,” she said. “I also like creepy mystery chapter books.”

“I read the first Harry Potter book when I was in kindergarten,” she informed me. Jake added, “It was the Sorcerer’s Stone, but we haven’t let her see the movie yet. We’re waiting for the ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ series to come out on Disney.” Another big hit for Maya is The Magic Treehouse book series. “We had to buy a Kindle for her because she was reading a Treehouse book each day,” said Elora. “It got so expensive, and the books kept piling up. We bought the series on Kindle, and it works well.”

Maya’s favorite subjects are science and reading, but she also enjoys doing artwork with her big case of Silly Scents markers. “I’m really good at drawing dogs who are shaking off water. Our teacher taught us how,” she said. She also uses crayons and pencils. As for paint, she said, “No big paint messes yet.”

Her favorite food is sushi—the California roll, with tobiko eggs on it. “I tried eel when I was in Hawaii but didn’t like it.” Hamburgers and hot dogs are also on the Maya Menu, plus strawberry and mint chip ice cream.

“I want to be a scientist when I grow up, and then president of the United States. I plan on going to Howard College.” Not to be outdone, her four-year-old sister, Olivia said, “I want to go to MIT when I grow up!” We think those college dreams may just come true for the Texara sisters.