Support

• Babies are born as “world citizens,” able to distinguish any sound in spoken language.
• Toddlers learn through interaction with their families and their immediate surroundings.
• School-age children make sense of new concepts by relating those new concepts to what they already know.
• Students before the age of puberty more easily gain native-like proficiency.

• In the United States, 1 of 7 persons is Hispanic.
• By 2020, Hispanics are expected to account for half of the growth in the U.S. labor force.
• Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the world.
• Spanish is a “gateway” language that will train the brain, thus making it easier to learn other languages.

• Research shows that children are able to learn one, two, or multiple languages early in life, and they do so with ease.
• Learning more than one language gives children cognitive advantages and increases cultural awareness and sensitivity.

Research clearly shows that students in a language immersion program regularly score commensurate with or above that of peers in other educational programs within the school or district on standardized tests.  Throughout the language acquisition process, immersion students may be able to read better in one language than the other. However, this is a normal part of learning to read, and research shows that eventually, immersion students tend to read at or above grade level in both languages.

• A language immersion program equips students to become Americans who are linguistically and culturally aware, increasing global competitiveness and communication.
• A language immersion program expands students’ potential career opportunities in our increasingly shrinking and diverse world market.
• A language immersion program fosters an inherent understanding of the world that prompts us to naturally cross-linguistic and cultural boundaries.