There are millions of people in the United States that are Spanish-speakers. Being able to communicate effectively in both languages is a big plus financially and, in corporate America, it is a sure and guaranteed way to climb faster up the ladder of success.
Being bilingual gives children many advantages over their monolingual counterparts. To help spread the benefits among the Black community, many African-American daycare owners are now exposing their students to not only Spanish, but a myriad of other languages as well, in order to give them an early boost and chance for a lifetime of success.
Here are three top benefits to raising bilingual children.
1. Bilingual children have a better ability to focus According to research, children that are bilingual are able to better focus and block out distractions as a result of the executive function of their brain being stronger. This part of the brain is central command station for planning, judgement, working memory, problem solving, and focus. Every time a bilingual person speaks, both languages are actually active in the brain and it has to work harder to suppress one language over the other; therefore, causing the executive function of the brain to get a lot more exercise!
2. Bilingual children become great multi-taskers Bilingual kids can switch back and forth between one language and another with ease, transferring that skill to also being able to switch in between tasks, once again, giving credit to the executive function of the brain. Great multi-tasking kids become exceptional multi-taskers as adults.
3. Bilingual children have increased success with math and verbal standardized testing Research has shown that children in dual-language settings have better scores on the math and verbal portions of their standardized tests. As a result of stronger logic skills and being better equipped mentally at problem solving, bilingual children on average score exponentially higher than their monolingual classmates.
Being bilingual carries a host of other pluses such as helping to alter the brain chemistry in hopes to stave off future bouts with Alzheimer’s, it gives the bilingual person the ability to easily learn many other languages, and it also helps children learn about and appreciate other cultures, in addition to much much more.
