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Give Your Children The Gift Of Spanish

Give Your Children The Gift Of Spanish

Teaching your kids Spanish at a young age will benefit them for the rest of their lives. You could wait until they take beginner’s Spanish class at school.  Depending on your school’s curriculum, they will probably have the opportunity to pick a language to learn in middle school. Many people believe it is easier to learn a second language as a child than as an adult. So why not give them a head start?

Teaching a child a second language at an early age has been shown to impact their overall learning skills in a very positive way. Studies have shown that children who learn Spanish at home excel in school and perform better on standardized testing than children not taught Spanish, or another second language. High school seniors with more than four years of a foreign language scored higher on their SATs than those students that hadn’t learned a second language.

Spanish is not the only second language option, but  there are many compelling reasons to choose Spanish. The Spanish speaking population is huge and growing, especially in the United States. It is one of the easiest foreign languages to learn and provides a good background for learning additional languages. Business opportunities abound for anyone with Spanish fluency. And learning Spanish will open your children’s eyes about how other people view the world.  

If you have traveled internationally, I’m sure you couldn’t help but notice that many, many people speak more than one language. In Europe, I frequently met people that spoke 4 or 5 languages fluently, almost unheard of in the U.S. Learning a popular language like Spanish as a child will open doors for them in the future, culturally, and professionally.  Helping your child learn another language might be one of the best gifts you can give them. With each passing generation, our children and grandchildren  will more become “citizens of the world” in addition to citizens of the United States.

Teaching Spanish from books is probably the least effective way. There are many resources that teach beginner’s Spanish for children. There are special websites that have  online Spanish lessons that make learning interactive and fun. There are also a number of learn Spanish audio CDs and interactive CD-ROMs that have games, songs, quizzes and jokes that make learning fun. Even if you don’t speak it, there are many ways you can help your child learn basic conversational Spanish.

Teaching Spanish for children doesn’t have to be hard, even if you don’t speak the language.  Why not learn Spanish alongside them if you don’t already speak it? Learning together can be a great deal of family fun and since they will probably pick it up faster than you, it will be a great self-esteem booster for them to help you learn.