Here in the U.S. we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month every year from September 15th to October 15th, and for our Mexican/Ecuadorian/American family it’s a chance to be super intentional about how we are celebrating latinidad with our kids. But you don’t have to be Hispanic or Latinx/e to appreciate the incredible contributions of Latin@s!
Start with curated Spanish and bilingual picture books, board books, and leveled readers matched to your child's age, and build a five-minute read-aloud habit around them. That single move does more for early bilingual literacy than any app or worksheet.
When researchers look at which families keep Spanish and which slowly lose it, the dividing line isn't fluency, money, or schools. It's something much quieter — and the parents pushing hardest are often the ones it slips away from.
Every bilingual family has this moment. Your child's Spanish starts to sound different from yours — more confident, more natural, maybe even more fluent. What happens next is more complicated, and more beautiful, than you'd expect.
If you're not a native speaker, you might be doing more than you think. If you are, there's one thing the research says you might be overlooking. What the science of bilingual development reveals about every family's hidden advantage.