Young children pick up new languages much faster than adults! In fact, the window for a child to acquire a new language drastically decreases after the first three years. And as it turns out, there may be huge benefits! Bilingual children as young as age 3 show a head start on fundamental social and emotional skills such as perspective-taking, among others. Which makes sense when you think about all the creative and critical thinking skills children have to access in order to speak more than one language.
Exploring other languages can also help support other areas of your child’s early development. By learning the language of your family’s culture, you are helping your daughter form a strong identity and connection to her social environment, or broaden her curiosity about the world around her.
So whether English is your primary language or secondary – preferred or not – it is never too early, or too late, to expose your child to a new language. Books are a great resource for exploring bilingualism! Luckily Imagination Library offers quite a few Spanish bilingual book titles, and even more books in other languages can be found at your local library.
