Bilingual Babies: Teaching Your Child Spanish as a Second Language

The best time to teach our children a second language is while they’re learning their first.

Kids in their formative years are developing language skills rapidly, and they quickly grasp whatever they hear. They learn new languages at an incredibly fast rate.

In the increasingly global world, most parents realize the importance of knowing more than one language. They know that being multilingual will open up various opportunities for their children in the future and make them creative thinkers.

Incorporating a second language like Spanish into your children’s daily routine will have multiple cognitive and social benefits. They will become more open and excepting of various cultures, become confident, and their brain functions will stay sharper as they age.

Here’s how you can get your little learner to pursue a second language.

Start Early

Kids in their formative years are not only energetic, but they’re also extremely sharp. They recognize the speech patterns and sounds around them much faster and rapidly pick up unique sounds.

Start by introducing them to multilingual storybooks, music, TV shows etc. This way, they can develop healthy habits such as reading daily and learn a new language at the same time.

Make sure you don’t miss this critical period as your child’s learning ability is at its sharpest during formative years.

Start Small

Even though young children learn fast, burdening them with tons of reading material can make them lose interest. Teach one word at a time while explaining the meaning behind the word.

You can start with colors, shapes, or counting. Try to use the second language in your daily routine so that the child becomes familiar with common words. A casual learning environment can be more fruitful than formal lessons.

Use Repetition While Teaching

Engaging the children in the learning process is crucial. When you continuously repeat a phrase or a word, children become familiar with it and learn faster.

Form a Positive Learning Atmosphere

While young children are smart learners, everything takes time. It’s unreasonable to expect positive outcomes from the first lesson.

Children learning a second language need support and encouragement more than anything else. They’re trying something new, and they need someone to boost their confidence. Encourage the children to engage in social interactions, for example, asking a friend something in the second language, singing a song, or reading a multilingual book.

Such promotion of confidence will make them more motivated, and the appreciation and applause will inspire them to perform better.

Buy Children’s Books Online

The Cat, the Fish, and the Waiter is a multilingual storybook for kids that teaches them three languages. You can order a copy of the children’s book online today.

Visit our website to place an order.

 

 

 

Disclaimer: Please note that this content has been proofread manually and through grammar checkers to eliminate all spacing errors. Any spacing errors you may come across are due to compatibility issues in Microsoft Word.