Folium: Increase Your Child’s “Mental Flexibility” via Districtadministration.com
Folium: Increase Your Child’s “Mental Flexibility” via Districtadministration.com
Folium: Increase Your Child’s “Mental Flexibility” via Districtadministration.com
Results of 144 research studies led to the conclusion that early experience with two language systems seems to leave children with “a mental flexibility, a superiority in concept formation, and a more diversified set of mental abilities.”
To paraphrase a Chinese Proverb, there is only one brilliant child in the world, and every mother has it. Actually, the proverb says beautiful, but poetic license is appropriate here. What parents wouldn’t like to enable their child to have increased mental flexibility, some kind of superiority, and a diversified set of abilities? Sign me up! I have six children, some of which may perhaps need more mental flexibility augmentation than others. But please, not until they’re at least 2. I don’t want them to outmaneuver me until they’re potty trained and will stay consistently in their own bed at night. On the other hand, at this point I’ll settle for a diet cola with ample ice cubes, my wants are simple.
Increase Test-Taking Skills!
Taking foreign language lessons increases scores on the Verbal portion of the SAT. Learning a foreign language erases disparity between lower socioeconomic level students and their more advantaged peers. When Thomas Cooper examined data from 23 high schools in the Southeast in 1987, he found that students who took a foreign language in high school scored significantly higher on the verbal scale of the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who studied a foreign language performed “basically just as well as their more fortunate peers.” So if I can’t give them everything, I can give them a love for learning languages, and that will help give them their everything.
“…linguistic studies show that children who begin learning a second language before adolescence exhibit more native-like pronunciation and are more likely to become fluent speakers.” – Directadministration.com
Then I should start asking for that Diet Coke with extra ice when they’re young, purely in the interest of education and brain development, of course.
“¡Dulce hija, por favor trae a tu madre un Coca Dieta, por favor!”
I’m just doing it for the children. For their future…
“Con limón, por favor…”
I can almost feel their IQs rising as they open the refrigerator. It’s the least a loving parent can do… Really!
Kellisue Montague-Kolz
LEAF Contributor
Resources:
The LEAF Project
www.leaflanguages.org
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