728x90
my iParenting
From Our Sponsors
Get Pregnancy Information
e-newsletters
Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters

new terms of use
new privacy policy
award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
Home › Articles › Parenting Strategies › Bilingual Babies!

Bilingual Babies!

Teaching Your Child a Foreign Language

By Katherine Bontrager

Pages:  1  2  3  4  5  

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 18 percent of U.S. residents speak a language other than English in the home, an increase of 75 percent since 1990. The numbers are staggering, though most don't need statistics to understand that the world is getting smaller with each passing day. Learning a second language has become a requirement within many educational institutions, a necessity for businesses large and small and a key to a variety of cultures and countries.

It can also be a difficult struggle – unless you happen to be a 3-year-old. Strange but true: Your newborn has a better chance of becoming fluent in a second language than many highly educated adults.

 

Primed for Learning
"Between birth and age 8, your child's brain is uniquely hard-wired to absorb languages and to learn to pronounce words with a native accent," says Stacy DeBroff, mother of two and author of The Mom Book: 4,278 of Mom Central's Tips – for Moms From Moms (Free Press 2002). "Children learn languages very differently from adults, with studies finding that children even store a second language in a different area of the brain." DeBroff, a former Harvard lawyer who also runs Mom Central, Inc. and the www.momcentral.com Web site, understands the benefits of children learning foreign languages on a neurological level as well as a social one.

DeBroff says it is never too early to start teaching children a foreign language. When most parents are concerned only with comprehension of English, they fail to understand just how incredibly children's brains function. "The earlier children start learning a second language, the better, even as early as 1 year old," she says. "Many teachers and linguists recommend starting the language learning process as soon as possible, even before children become verbal in their first language. Even though children are not speaking at that point, they are actively absorbing and processing language."


Pages:  1  2  3  4  5  

Want to see more?

Comments

There are no comments for this article yet.Be the first to add a comment.

Post As:
Enter your comment below:
Title
Comment Text
CAPTCHA
Please note that any comments submitted become the property of Disney Family / iParenting and can be edited and posted at our discrection.