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Spanish Immersion
Parent Handbook
77 Reade Street
New York, New York 10007
(212) 513-PRE-K (7735)
104 Reade Street
New York, New York 10013
(212) 346-PREP (7737)
Table of Contents
Welcome 1
Relevant Research 2 The Bilingual Advantage [The New York Times]
Study Shows Cognitive Benefit of Lifelong Bilingualism [Society for Neuroscience]
Understanding How the Brain Speaks Two Languages [TIME]
Why Bilinguals Are Smarter [The New York Times]
10 Reasons Why You Should Raise Your Kids To Be Bilingual [Thought Catalog]
Pronunciation Guide 8
At Home 9 Library
Kitchen
Media 13 Songs
Apps
Websites
Tips 14
1
Welcome
Dear Parents,
Welcome to Reade Street Prep’s Spanish Immersion
community! You have made an exciting and proactive decision by
enrolling your child in this program. Research demonstrates that
early foreign language acquisition enhances critical thinking skills,
promotes language fluency, and broadens cultural awareness; your
little one is sure to be prepared for a global future.
Throughout the upcoming year, our team of teachers will strive
to facilitate your child’s transition into the 500-million-member club
of Spanish speakers around the world. Although the program’s
success is not dependent on your participation, you may utilize this
handbook to supplement all schoolwork. Consult it often throughout
the year!
As always, feel free to reach out to me or your teachers with
any questions that you may have. I look forward to a most
successful year!
Sincerely,
Natalie
Director, Reade Street Prep
2
Relevant Research
http://www.speechbuddy.com/blog/news/bilingual-kids-get-a-boost-benefits-of-in-home-speech-therapy-for-multiple-languages/
http://www.brainfacts.org/sensing-thinking-behaving/language/articles/2008/the-bilingual-brain/
Brain scans of bilingual individuals found greater gray-matter density (yellow) in
the inferior parietal cortex, an area in the brain’s left hemisphere that controls
most language, communication, and concentration skills. The density was
most pronounced in people who were very proficient in a second language
and in those who learned a second language before the age of five,
suggesting that being bilingual from an early age significantly alters the brain’s
structure.
3
The Bilingual Advantage
The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/science/31conversation.html
A cognitive neuroscientist, Ellen Bialystok has spent almost 40 years learning about how bilingualism sharpens the mind. Her good news: Among other
benefits, the regular use of two languages appears to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease symptoms. Dr. Bialystok, 62, a distinguished research professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, was awarded a $100,000 Killam Prize last year for her contributions to social science.
Q. How did you begin studying bilingualism? A. You know, I didn’t start trying to find out whether bilingualism was bad or good. I did my doctorate in psychology: on
how children acquire language. When I finished graduate school, in 1976, there was a job shortage in Canada for Ph.D.’s.
The only position I found was with a research project studying second language acquisition in school children. It wasn’t my
area. But it was close enough.
As a psychologist, I brought neuroscience questions to the study, like “How does the acquisition of a second language
change thought?” It was these types of questions that naturally led to the bilingualism research. The way research works is,
it takes you down a road. You then follow that road.
Q. So what exactly did you find on this unexpected road? A. As we did our research, you could see there was a big difference in the way monolingual and bilingual children
processed language. We found that if you gave 5- and 6-year-olds language problems to solve, monolingual and bilingual
children knew, pretty much, the same amount of language.
But on one question, there was a difference. We asked all the children if a certain illogical sentence was grammatically
correct: “Apples grow on noses.” The monolingual children couldn’t answer. They’d say, “That’s silly” and they’d stall.
But the bilingual children would say, in their own words, “It’s silly, but it’s grammatically correct.” The bilinguals, we
found, manifested a cognitive system with the ability to attend to important information and ignore the less important.
Q. How does this work — do you understand it? A. Yes. There’s a system in your brain, the executive control system. It’s a general manager. Its job is to keep you focused
on what is relevant, while ignoring distractions. It’s what makes it possible for you to hold two different things in your
mind at one time and switch between them.
If you have two languages and you use them regularly, the way the brain’s networks work is that every time you speak,
both languages pop up and the executive control system has to sort through everything and attend to what’s relevant in the
moment. Therefore the bilinguals use that system more, and it’s that regular use that makes that system more efficient.
Q. One of your most startling recent findings is that bilingualism helps forestall the symptoms of Alzheimer’s
disease. How did you come to learn this? A. We did two kinds of studies. In the first, published in 2004, we found that normally aging bilinguals had better cognitive
functioning than normally aging monolinguals. Bilingual older adults performed better than monolingual older adults on
executive control tasks. That was very impressive because it didn’t have to be that way. It could have turned out that
everybody just lost function equally as they got older.
That evidence made us look at people who didn’t have normal cognitive function. In our next studies , we looked at the
medical records of 400 Alzheimer’s patients. On average, the bilinguals showed Alzheimer’s symptoms five or six years
later than those who spoke only one language. This didn’t mean that the bilinguals didn’t have Alzheimer’s. It meant that as
the disease took root in their brains, they were able to continue functioning at a higher level. They could cope with the
disease for longer.
Q. One would think bilingualism might help with multitasking — does it? A. Yes, multitasking is one of the things the executive control system handles. We wondered, “Are bilinguals better at
multitasking?” So we put monolinguals and bilinguals into a driving simulator. Through headphones, we gave them extra
tasks to do — as if they were driving and talking on cellphones. We then measured how much worse their driving got.
Now, everybody’s driving got worse. But the bilinguals, their driving didn’t drop as much. Because adding on another task
while trying to concentrate on a driving problem, that’s what bilingualism gives you — though I wouldn’t advise doing
this.
Q. Bilingualism used to be considered a negative thing — at least in the United States. Is it still? A. Until about the 1960s, the conventional wisdom was that bilingualism was a disadvantage. Some of this was
xenophobia. Thanks to science, we now know that the opposite is true.
Q. Many immigrants choose not to teach their children their native language. Is this a good thing? A. I’m asked about this all the time. People e-mail me and say, “I’m getting married to someone from another culture, what
should we do with the children?” I always say, “You’re sitting on a potential gift.”
There are two major reasons people should pass their heritage language onto children. First, it connects children to their
ancestors. The second is my research: Bilingualism is good for you. It makes brains stronger. It is brain exercise.
4
Study Shows Cognitive Benefit of Lifelong Bilingualism
Society for Neuroscience http://www.sfn.org/Press-Room/News-Release-Archives/2013/Study-Shows-Cognitive-Benefit-of-Lifelong-Bilingualism
Seniors who have spoken two languages since childhood are faster than single-language speakers at
switching from one task to another, according to a study published in the January 9 issue of The
Journal of Neuroscience. Compared to their monolingual peers, lifelong bilinguals also show different
patterns of brain activity when making the switch, the study found.
The findings suggest the value of regular stimulating mental activity across the lifetime. As people age,
cognitive flexibility — the ability to adapt to unfamiliar or unexpected circumstances — and related
“executive” functions decline. Recent studies suggest lifelong bilingualism may reduce this decline —
a boost that may stem from the experience of constantly switching between languages. However, how
brain activity differs between older bilinguals and monolinguals was previously unclear.
In the current study, Brian T. Gold, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Kentucky College of
Medicine, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the brain activity of healthy
bilingual seniors (ages 60-68) with that of healthy monolingual seniors as they completed a task that
tested their cognitive flexibility. The researchers found that both groups performed the task accurately.
However, bilingual seniors were faster at completing the task than their monolingual peers despite
expending less energy in the frontal cortex — an area known to be involved in task switching.
“This study provides some of the first evidence of an association between a particular cognitively
stimulating activity — in this case, speaking multiple languages on a daily basis — and brain
function,” said John L. Woodard, PhD, an aging expert from Wayne State University, who was not
involved with the study. “The authors provide clear evidence of a different pattern of neural
functioning in bilingual versus monolingual individuals.”
The researchers also measured the brain activity of younger bilingual and monolingual adults while
they performed the cognitive flexibility task.
Overall, the young adults were faster than the seniors at performing the task. Being bilingual did not
affect task performance or brain activity in the young participants. In contrast, older bilinguals
performed the task faster than their monolingual peers and expended less energy in the frontal parts of
their brain.
“This suggests that bilingual seniors use their brains more efficiently than monolingual seniors,” Gold
said. “Together, these results suggest that lifelong bilingualism may exert its strongest benefits on the
functioning of frontal brain regions in aging.”
This research was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the National Science
Foundation.
The Journal of Neuroscience is published by the Society for Neuroscience, an organization nearly
42,000 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system. More information on
aging, bilingualism, and the brain can be found on BrainFacts.org.
5
Understanding How the Brain Speaks Two Languages
TIME http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/23/bilingualism/
Learning to speak was the most remarkable thing you ever did. It wasn’t just the 50,000 words you had to
master to become fluent or the fact that for the first six years of your life you learned about three new words per day.
It was the tenses and the syntax and the entire scaffolding of grammar, not to mention the metaphors and allusions
and the almost-but-not-quite synonyms.
But you accomplished it, and good for you. Now imagine doing it 2 or 3 times over — becoming bilingual,
trilingual or more. The mind of the polyglot is a very particular thing, and scientists are only beginning to look
closely at how acquiring a second language influences learning, behavior and the very structure of the brainitself. At a
bilingualism conference last weekend convened by the Lycée Français de New York, where all students learn in both
English and French, and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, language experts gathered to explore where the
science stands so far and where it’s heading next (disclosure: my children are LFNY students).
Humans are crude linguists from the moment of birth — and perhaps even in the womb — to the extent at
least that we can hear spoken sounds and begin to recognize different combinations language sounds. At first, we
don’t much care which of these phonemes from which languages we absorb, which makes sense since the brain has to
be ready to learn any of the world’s thousands of languages depending on where we’re born.
“Before 9 months of age, a baby produces a babble made up of hundreds of phonemes from hundreds of
languages,” said Elisabeth Cros, a speech therapist with the Ecole Internationale de New York. “Parents will react to
the phonemes they recognize from their native tongues, which reinforces the baby’s use of those selected ones.”
Doubling down on a pair of languages rather than just one does take extra work, but it’s work young children
are generally not aware they’re doing. Bilingual people of all ages are continually addressing what research
psychologist Ellen Bialystok of Toronto’s York University calls the dog-chien dilemma, encountering an object,
action or concept and instantaneously toggling between two different words to describe it. Such nimble
decisionmaking ought to improve on-the-fly problem solving, and studies show that it does.
Language researchers often point to the famed Stroop test, which asks subjects to look at the word red, for example,
which is presented in an ink of a different color, say blue. Then they are required to say aloud or identify on a
computer the ink color. That requires an additional fraction of a second to accomplish than if both the word and ink
color were the same. Everyone experiences that lag, but for bilinguals it’s measurably shorter. “Monolinguals always
need more time,” Bialystok says. “It’s a lifelong advantage for bilinguals.”
Excelling on the Stroop test is hardly a marketable skill, but what it suggests about the brain is something
else. Sean Lynch, headmaster of the LFNY, previously worked in a multilingual school in France in which all of the
students spoke French and at least one of 12 other languages, including Japanese, Russian, Italian and Spanish. As is
often the case with well-endowed schools, the students, on average, outperformed their age peers academically, and
it’s impossible to determine how much of that is due to native skill and how much to the fact that they simply have
access to better teachers, books and other resources. Still, Lynch observed that these students seemed to show a
greater facility with skills that relied on interpreting symbolic representations, such as math or music.
Lynch also believes — albeit based primarily on his own observations — that multilingual kids may exhibit
social empathy sooner than children who grow up speaking only one language, which makes developmental sense.
The theory of mind — understanding that what’s in your head is not the same as what’s in other people’s heads —
does not emerge in children until they’re about 3 years old. Prior to that, they assume that if, say, they know a secret
you probably do too. There’s a kind of primal narcissism in this — a belief that their worldview is the universal one.
Once they learn that’s not the case, self-centeredness falls away — at least a little — and the long process of true
socialization begins. There’s nothing that accelerates the acquisition of that kind of other-awareness like the
realization that even the very words you use to label the things in your world — dog, tree, banana — are not the same
ones everyone uses.
Preliminary imaging work suggests that the roots of this behavior may even be visible in the brain. Some
studies, for example, have shown a thickening of the cortex in two brain regions — most importantly the left inferior
parietal, which helps code for language and gesturing. Bialystok is not entirely sold on these studies, since she would
expect the greatest differences to be in the frontal lobes, where higher functions such as planning, decision-making
and other aspects of what’s known as executive control take place. Some of her own work has found an increase in
white matter — the fatty sheathing that insulates nerves and improves their ability to communicate — in the frontal
regions of bilinguals, suggesting denser signaling and complexity of functions in these areas. “Structural differences
are where the new science is really unfolding,” she says. “That work will reveal a lot.”
6
Why Bilinguals Are Smarter
Sunday Review: The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html?_r=0
SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world.
But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than
being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a
profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old
age.
This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century.
Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking,
that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.
They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language
systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the
other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the
brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.
Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles. In a
2004 study by the psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were
asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins — one marked with a blue
square and the other marked with a red circle.
In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue
square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children
were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a
conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.
The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s
so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving
problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay
focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a
sequence of directions while driving.
Why does the tussle between two simultaneously active language systems improve these aspects of cognition?
Until recently, researchers thought the bilingual advantage stemmed primarily from an ability for inhibition that was honed
by the exercise of suppressing one language system: this suppression, it was thought, would help train the bilingual mind to
ignore distractions in other contexts. But that explanation increasingly appears to be inadequate, since studies have shown
that bilinguals perform better than monolinguals even at tasks that do not require inhibition, like threading a line through an
ascending series of numbers scattered randomly on a page.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the
environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your
mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Spain. “It requires
keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study
comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found
that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in
monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.
The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that
it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life).
In a 2009 study led by Agnes Kovacs of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, 7-month-old babies
exposed to two languages from birth were compared with peers raised with one language. In an initial set of trials, the
infants were presented with an audio cue and then shown a puppet on one side of a screen. Both infant groups learned to
look at that side of the screen in anticipation of the puppet. But in a later set of trials, when the puppet began appearing on
the opposite side of the screen, the babies exposed to a bilingual environment quickly learned to switch their anticipatory
gaze in the new direction while the other babies did not.
Bilingualism’s effects also extend into the twilight years. In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English
bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that
individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each
language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the
higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.
Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the
sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?
7
10 Reasons Why You Should Raise Your Kids To Be Bilingual
Thought Catalog http://thoughtcatalog.com/christina-craver/2013/12/10-reasons-why-you-should-raise-your-kids-bilingual/
I grew up in a multicultural household. My Mom is Thai and my Dad’s American. Like so many kids of
“immigrant” parents, my mom wanted to assimilate into American society. Translation: speaking English. Sure, growing
up we went to Thai school and mouthed words for a few years, but with no practice at home we fell behind - and ultimately
broke our Mom with our shrill pleas not to have to go anymore.
Today, I still don’t speak Thai - beyond “hi,” “thank you,” and “I need to go to the bathroom,” that is. I instead
took up Italian as both as an undergraduate and graduate student; I now live and work in Italy. I speak Italian in my day-
to-day life as a way to assimilate into the local culture…how ironic!
If there’s one thing I wish I had understood from a young age, it is the importance of multilingualism. As a way of
rectifying this grave oversight, I’ve made a promise to myself that my kids, regardless of when I have them, where I live, if
I’m a single, if I adopt, and so on and so forth, will grow up bilingual. Here’s why:
1. Opportunity.
Knowing a second language can open up the world to you – for work, for friendship, even for love. Life is about
connecting with people, and knowing another language sure does facilitate that.
2. Creativity.
Once upon a time, people thought bilingual kids were disadvantaged. You’d ask them to name all words starting
with “p” in one language and they’d be slower than monolingual kids in responding. But, if you tell them to
name all words with “p” in any language – they began spouting out words, left and right. This ability to unlock
parts of the brain exemplifies the creativity from inner corners of the brain that may otherwise fill with cobwebs.
3. Expression.
Sometimes, there’s just no way to articulate yourself – other than in a specific language. Saying “pig dog” in
English sounds just ridiculous but if you yell “porco cane” in Italian it takes on a whole different meaning.
4. Ability.
Learning a second language from the cradle makes it that much easier to add more languages. I’ve made friends
who grew up in bilingual households, then added 1, 2, 3 or more languages in school and college. I can’t even
begin to describe the burning jealousy I have when I see them spin around in a circle speaking a different
language to everyone around them.
5. Flexibility.
It’s difficult to be perfectly fluent in two languages. Usually, people are more dominant in one or the other. This
means you have to improvise, or even find a work-around, in order to get your point across. These are skills that
are very handy for all aspects of life.
6. Heritage.
One day, my mom said, “If you don’t learn Thai, that part of your culture will end with you.” This left me
floored. It’s true. Unless I learn Thai or pass it onto my kids, that part of my lineage will become family legend.
7. Multiculturalism.
Even if you’re not ethnically mixed, knowing another language gives you access to other cultures and
perspectives through books, television, film and travel.
8. Growth.
When you do and see things differently, it’s impossible not to grow as a person. We never stop learning.
Another language exponentially increases your ability to grow as a person.
9. Travel.
Of course, this is subjective on where you want to travel and what languages you learn. Knowing common
languages like Mandarin, English, French, or Spanish simply makes it easier to get around.
10. Music.
Music is life. It’s emotion. It’s expression. The ability to enjoy music in various languages AND understand
what in the world they’re saying is a true gift.
8
Pronunciation Guide
The decoding of Spanish words is relatively simple and predictable.
With few exceptions, each letter in the Spanish alphabet represents a
single sound; even when there are several possible sounds, simple rules
can reliably dictate which one is appropriate.
See below for details on the pronunciation of vowels and
diphthongs in the Spanish language; consonants remain fairly
straightforward.
A
/a/ in father
Ex: adelante, madre, gracias, hola
E
/e/ in ten
Ex: emociones, madre
I
/ee/ in feet
Ex: amigo, amiga
/y/ in you, when immediately followed by another vowel
Ex: familia
O
/o/ in more, without the /r/ sound
Ex: comunidad, hola
U
/oo/ in pool
Ex: unidos, uno
/w/ in water, when immediately followed by another vowel
Ex: abuela, cuerpo, cuaderno
Y
/ee/ in feet, when:
a word by itself
Ex: y
at the end of a word
Ex: rey, soy
in the middle of a compound word
Ex: solymar
/ ʝ /
Although there is no English equivalent for this voiced palatal
fricative, it somewhat resembles a vibrating /y/ sound. Visit
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palatal fricative for a soundbyte.
Ex: reyes, ayudar, yeso
9
At Home
Library
In the interest of precluding an association between Spanish and
English, Reade Street Prep does not allow bilingual books in the
classroom. Nevertheless, the following list of books may be wonderful
contributions to your home libraries; use them to not only reinforce, but
also participate in, the linguistic progress that your child is making at
school.
A is for Airplane / A es Para Avion By Theresa Howell
The Cat in the Hat: In English and Spanish By Dr. Seuss and Carlos Rivera
10
Jorge El Curioso Visita El Acuario / Curious George at the Aquarium By H. A. Rey
La Oruga Muy Hambrienta / The Very Hungry Caterpillar By Eric Carle
Mi Primer Libro Bilingue: La Comida / My First Bilingual Book: Food By Mar Andres Thomas
11
Perro Grande…Perro Pequeno / Big Dog…Little Dog By P.D. Eastman
Pocoyó: Primeras Palabras By Zinkia
Quiero a Mi Papa Porque / I Love My Daddy Because By Laurel Porter
12
Rainbow Fish Colors / Colores By Marcus Pfister
Kitchen
You may also want to infuse your home kitchen with elements of
the cuisine that is enjoyed in Spanish-speaking countries. By creating
authentic dishes with your children, you will further instill an appreciation
for the culture in their minds – and their bellies!
A Taste of Latino Cultures: Un Toque de Sabor Latino By George Kunzel
Secrets of Salsa: A Bilingual Cookbook By Kira Brennan and Julia Alvarez
13
Media
Songs
Listen to music in Spanish while working out, commuting, or relaxing
around the house. Regular activities can soon become multi-tasking
opportunities for language development!
Download TuneIn Radio to access over 100,000 real radio
stations from around the world. You can even browse by location!
Cha, Cha, Cha [Canciones Infantiles]
Fiesta! [Sesame Street]
Latin Playground [Putamayo Presents]
Spanish for Kids: Sabor [Jorge Anaya]
Apps
Quit Candy Crush and open up one of these apps! Each time you
or your little one taps that iPad screen, you’ll be taking a step towards
language proficiency.
Cute Baby Flash Cards: Spanish [United Worx, Ltd.]
Duolingo Spanish
MindSnacks
Spanish Baby Flash Cards: Kids Learn Spanish [eFlash Educational]
Websites
Consult the following websites for general information on Spanish
pronunciation, resources, and culture.
www.wordreference.com
www.studyspanish.com
http://www.pimsleurapproach.com/resources/spanish/articles/hist
ory-of-spanish-language/
www.rosettastone.com
14
Tips
Master a few simple words or phrases, then use them during daily
routines or errands. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsJaUXProD4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5N_j1KEkHg
Watching movies in Spanish with English subtitles can help you
become more familiar with not only the language, but also the
culture.
Pan’s Labyrinth
Moles
The Motorcycle Diaries
Planes
Spanish is widely spoken in New York City; visit local businesses to
practice conversational skills with native speakers.
Listen to music in Spanish while working out, commuting, or relaxing
around the house. Regular activities can soon become multi-tasking
opportunities for language development!
Practice, practice, practice! Even one mispronounced word is a step
towards partnering with your child as language learners.