There is Nothing Wrong with Growing Up Bilingual

Have you ever considered how different someone who is bilingual might develop their literacy skills compared to someone who is monolingual? Being bilingual at a young age can have a lot of great benefits but also could potentially hold you back in other aspects of life. This topic has always appealed to me, being raised in a bilingual household myself and being the only one in my friend group most of the time, I felt there was something different about my literacy skills. I felt as though I couldn’t read as fast or that I couldn’t talk as well as my peers. I wasn’t sure if something was wrong with me but now looking back I realize that this could have been a result from growing up with two languages and in a way, two identities, side by side. 

Most people in the education system don’t consider bilingual children and how that might affect their learning in a school setting. They might need more help in certain areas that monolingual kids don’t. If they receive extra help in the areas where they might struggle more they will be more successful in the long run. The education system is structured around monolingual kids that have two English speaking parents at home but the reality is that most kids, especially in a city such as New York City, don’t have this. The truth is that there are a variety of benefits that come along with growing bilingual that are often overlooked and not taken seriously, as you read on you will discover the advantages and possible disadvantages that have been researched for years.

To begin, one of the main benefits from growing up bilingual is better overall performance in school and academics as they grow older. Being surrounded by two languages at a young age, the child is much more likely to absorb the information which means it happens almost automatically. In the article “Why Bilingual Students Have a Cognitive Advantage for Learning to Read,” published by a nonprofit organization called Waterford in 2019, the claims  is that being bilingual leads to better thinking skills, memory retention, attention span, multitasking, and conflict-resolution, which together means more likely to be successful in school settings. The article supports their claim by depending on educational researchers who have studied how bilingual children develop their literacy skills in contrast to monolingual kids. The purpose of the article is to make the readers aware of all of the added benefits that bilingual children have compared to their monolingual peers in order to help people realize the importance of teaching children their native language. Many times, however, bilingual children aren’t taught how to read and write in their first language which might not lead to the full spectrum of advantages that being bilingual has to offer.

Furthermore, even though there are many benefits academically for bilingual children, they aren’t always given the support they need.  The research found on bilingual children should lead to educators paying greater attention to the oral language skills of bilingual students so that the literacy gap diminishes between bilingual and monolingual students (Fusaro). The research that has been taken regarding bilingual children and how studying these children show that when they are given the proper support they won’t fall behind their peers. When a language isn’t spoken at home, it would be normal to assume the child will need more support in their second language at school, but this isn’t always the reality. This  helps people understand why practicing both languages can help their overall ability when it comes to school and communication in the long run. However, I find that it is in most cases rare that parents of bilingual children actually sit down with their children to make sure they can read and write in their native language, not just speak it. This makes the difference in a lot of cases and can also help in the future when the child might forget their native language due to lack of use outside their home.

Moreover, going back to my previous point, there’s more evidence that helps support the claim that bilingual children perform better in school. In this article, written byPhD students in 2016 called “Second Language/Bilingualism at An Early Age with Emphasis on Its Impact on Early Socio-Cognitive and Socio-Emotional Development,” it was found that bilingual children have higher test scores than monolingual children when it comes to cognitive ability, problem solving and grammar in sentences. The article supports this claim with evidence from research that studied literacy development in bilingual children. This adds to my previous point that bilingual children need more support in school because oftentimes when they begin to learn English at school, they feel behind from their classmates because they aren’t surrounded by English at home which translates into school. It might take them longer to understand the concepts but that doesn’t mean they’re behind. A good way to solve this problem would be to put bilingual children into ESL classes. ESL stands for English as a second language which is specially designed for the purpose of making sure they are keeping up with their peers.

Moreover, it has been proven that bilingual children consistently outperform monolingual children in various tests. (Hansen et al. 63) The results from their research are shown through graphs that are shown later in the essay. The research shows that bilingual children have better working memory development than monolingual children. This supports the overall claim that growing up in a bilingual household has many benefits that are separate from knowing two languages from a young age. This helps articulate the idea that bilingual children develop differently than their monolingual peers and that when given the proper support they can not just excel but succeed their peers.

The first graph depicts how bilingual and monolingual children compare when it comes to different tests that measure language-based development in terms of vocabulary and rapid automatic naming in grades 2,3,5 &8. The second graph illustrates reading span score levels within grades 2,3,5 & 8 for bilingual and monolingual children.  (Hansen et al. 63 and 66)

Additionally, as stated by “Bilingualism in the Early Years: What the Science Says,” by Krista Byers-Heinlein from Concordia University and Casey Lew-Williams from Northwestern University in 2013, “Research demonstrates that we need to reshape our views of early bilingualism: children are born ready to learn the language or languages of their environments without confusion or delay.” This idea perfectly encapsulates the concept I want to make sure is understood because it confirms that growing up bilingual doesn’t “confuse” kids. In fact, it does the opposite and provides them with a valuable tool that will come in handy for the rest of their lives. The article goes on to explicitly state that raising bilingual children does not confuse them, in fact it does the opposite in the sense that many more benefits that are had than there are negative effects. Although there are some pediatricians that have said that they don’t recommend parents to raise bilingual children, many of the concerns aren’t scientifically backed up which means bilingual children are just fine and they aren’t confused (Byers-Heinlein and Lew-Williams).

On the other hand, while I stand with the argument that being bilingual is in the long term more beneficial than harmful, some sources say that of course it could potentially lead to dominance of one language or the other. For example, if the child focuses more on their English than Spanish, they might have resentment towards their Spanish speaking and family which might cause them to later on have trouble communicating with their family. The other possibility is that they come to the United States at a later age than most immigrants and they are thrown into an English-only environment without any knowledge of it. This can be very confusing of course because they will struggle in school until they can catch up to their peers. They might even face bullying if they carry an accent into their English. The reality is that it is very hard to speak perfectly fluently in both languages. Your brain will naturally take over and the language you write and read in, which most likely comes from school, will be the language that dominates the rest of your life.

Overall, to conclude, I have found that over the course of researching the effects of growing up bilingual I have discovered that there are many more benefits in the long run than there are negatives. Growing up bilingual, you often feel like something is wrong with you because maybe you struggle reading more than your classmates but the reality is that it doesn’t matter because it you let yourself learn English at school and continue to speak your native language at home in the long run you will be more likely to succeed in academics and all the other components that were previously mentioned. If you know someone who is bilingual and isn’t sure if they want to teach their children their native language then you have the power to inform them about all the beautiful benefits. It’s important to mention that it’s never too late to start learning a new language because with enough practice our brains are capable of much more than you would expect. So, just to make sure the point went across, there is nothing wrong with being bilingual.