NORMAN PARK — You can learn a lot from children, but would you expect to learn how to speak and read a new language from a 7-year-old?

Like so many children within the Colquitt County school system, Victor Tinejero Jr., a first-grader at Norman Park Elementary School, came to class understanding only Spanish. He was so far behind that his teacher, Joyce Gray, was worried.

“If somebody had asked me at the beginning of the year if he would get this far, I would have said no because he was so far behind. But he just came forward, and he has worked his little heart out this year,” Gray said. “... He has that desire to learn. A lot of times, you get one, and they’re behind and they don’t look to catch up, but he has.”

When tested at the beginning of the year he knew the word “I,” and he knew the word “a.” Now he’s writing — in very neat penmanship — essays about sharks and sunfish, sea horses and puffer fish.

At the start of the year, he read on the level of a beginning kindergartner. He’s now able to relay his thoughts in English nearly as articulately as native speakers and has passed the CRCT.

“Now, he has finished second grade sight words, and he’s reading on Level H. He can read Level I, but he’s more fluent on H,” Gray said. “Level I is the end of first grade.”

“He’s amazed me,” his teacher said. “... He’s just like a little sponge absorbing. All of a sudden, I could understand everything he was saying.”

His progress is a success story and a testament to the working of the plan set forth in Colquitt County Schools. At Norman Park this year, Victor met first thing each morning with a teacher for one-on-one instruction. He also had help from English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teacher Amy Cooper and Communities in Schools mentor Vivian Hall several times a week, Gray said.

But Victor, again like so many other local children, now finds himself serving as interpreter for his mother. It’s a huge responsibility, especially for a child of 7.

Victor is the son of Candy and Victor Tinejero Sr. There’s also a second child, 4-year-old Jocelyn. The family came into the U.S. from Queretaro, two hours north of Mexico City, Mr. Tinejero said.

Mr. Tinejero speaks some English. He studied the language after work in Florida for a half year, he said, and picks up some here and there. Spanish, however, is spoken mainly at work. But it’s his son who is helping him bring it all together, he said.

“I can read a little bit, and I can write a little bit,” he said. “... I talk with him, and he helps me too a lot. When we talk, we use practice, the English I have, the English he has...”

Mr. Tinejero, a farmworker, often was still working in the fields when Victor settled down for homework this year. That was a problem for Victor’s mother, Candy, who spoke no English when her son entered first grade. Frustrated when she couldn’t help him with his studies, she decided she’d best learn English, she said. But with Mr. Tinejero’s demanding work schedule, there wasn’t much time left for him to devote to teaching English at home. That left Victor, and he wanted his mother to learn all that he knew and more.

“If she can speak English too, she can do her shopping and speak English,” Victor reasoned.

He began teaching his mom from his list of sight words, he said, and later he took home his bilingual dictionary for her to pore over. She now understands much more and can carry on a conversation with his teachers when she visits the school.