How Speaking Two Languages Helps Your Child Succeed in School
By Palabra Garden
Parent concern number one: “If I raise my child bilingual, will it affect their English? Will they struggle in school?”
Parent concern number two: “What if bilingualism distracts from academics in the early years?”
I hear these questions constantly, and I understand them. You want your child to succeed. You want them to read at grade level, perform well in math, and not fall behind. The idea that adding a second language might interfere with that is understandably scary. But here’s what the research actually shows: bilingualism doesn’t distract from academic success. It actively supports it. In multiple measurable ways, bilingual children outperform monolingual peers on standardized tests, develop stronger reading comprehension, solve math problems better, and have better executive function skills overall.
This isn’t luck. This isn’t anecdotal. This is backed by large-scale studies and neurological research. I’m going to walk you through the research, the specific academic benefits, and how to feel confident that raising your child bilingual is an academic advantage, not a distraction.
Executive Function: The Cognitive Superpower of Bilingualism
The first and most significant academic benefit of bilingualism is something called executive function. This includes working memory, attention control, and cognitive flexibility.
Every time a bilingual child uses language, their brain has to manage two languages at once. They hear a word in Spanish, retrieve it from their Spanish system, choose not to activate English, and respond appropriately. That constant cognitive management builds stronger executive function.
Research consistently shows that bilingual children have stronger executive function than monolingual children. What does that mean in practical terms? Your child can focus better, switch between tasks more flexibly, ignore distractions more effectively, and manage working memory more efficiently.
These are the exact skills that predict academic success. A child with strong executive function can sit through a math lesson, ignore the distraction of classmates, remember instructions, and apply them to a problem. Those are school skills, and bilingual children develop them earlier and stronger than their monolingual peers.
Reading Comprehension and Literacy Skills
Here’s what researchers have found about bilingual children and reading:
Bilingual children read at higher levels than monolingual peers. Multiple studies comparing bilingual and monolingual children show that bilingual children understand what they read more deeply. They make stronger inferences. They remember more details. They answer comprehension questions more accurately.
Why? Partly because managing two languages builds stronger cognitive skills overall. Partly because bilingual children often have more exposure to literacy (books, stories, narration) across two languages. And partly because bilingual children develop stronger phonological awareness — they understand how language sounds are constructed — which directly supports reading skill.
Bilingual children learn to read in one language faster than monolingual children learn to read in their single language. This might seem counterintuitive, but it’s consistently found. A bilingual child who starts learning to read in English will develop English reading skills faster than a monolingual English-speaking child, even though they’re dividing their literacy exposure across two languages.
The explanation is that the bilingual child’s overall language and cognitive development is more advanced, so when they begin formal reading instruction, they’re starting from a more developed place.
Math Problem Solving and Abstract Thinking
Math is abstract. You can’t point to a number and say “that’s a three” in the way you can point to a dog and say “perro.” Math requires abstract thinking, which is a high-level cognitive skill.
Bilingual children, because they’re constantly managing abstract language systems, are better equipped for abstract thinking generally. Research shows that bilingual children solve math word problems more accurately and approach complex math problems with more flexibility.
This isn’t because bilingual kids are smarter. It’s because managing two language systems strengthens the cognitive pathways that abstract thinking relies on. Math problem solving is really applied abstract thinking, and bilingual children excel at it.
Standardized Test Performance
If you want concrete numbers, here they are:
Bilingual children score higher on standardized tests overall. Studies of bilingual programs show that bilingual children score higher than monolingual peers on standardized tests in reading, math, and overall achievement. This is true even when the bilingual children spend less total instructional time in English than monolingual children spend in English.
The “bilingual achievement advantage” appears around third grade and increases over time. It’s not always visible in kindergarten and first grade (when bilingual children might be processing language slightly differently than monolingual peers), but by third grade, the advantages become measurable and consistent.
Bilingual children maintain the advantage even in contexts where the second language is not the school language. If your child is being educated in English but also learning Spanish at home, they still show these academic advantages in their English schooling. The benefits of bilingualism transfer across contexts.
Social and Emotional Skills
Academic success isn’t just about test scores. It’s also about ability to work with others, manage emotions, and navigate social situations. Bilingual children show advantages here too.
Managing two languages requires mental flexibility, which translates to social flexibility. Bilingual children are often better at perspective-taking (understanding what someone else is thinking or feeling), managing group dynamics, and communicating across differences.
These aren’t measured on standardized tests, but they’re crucial for actual school success. A child who can work in groups, communicate effectively, and navigate social challenges is set up for success in ways that go way beyond reading and math scores.
The Research Is Actually Pretty Clear
Let me give you specific studies so you have something concrete to share with skeptics:
The Bilingual Advantage in Executive Function study (published in Cognition, 2017) tracked bilingual and monolingual children and found that “bilingual children showed significant advantages in several executive function measures,” advantages that were “present in childhood and increase throughout development.”
Research published in the journal “Language Learning” shows that bilingual children develop stronger metalinguistic awareness (awareness of how language works), which directly supports literacy development in both languages and their academic success in reading-focused subjects.
A comprehensive review in “Psychological Bulletin” concluded that “bilingual individuals consistently outperform monolinguals on measures of executive function,” and that this advantage “appears to be domain-general,” meaning it applies to many different types of cognitive tasks.
These aren’t small studies or anecdotal reports. These are large-scale, peer-reviewed research findings. The weight of evidence is clear: bilingualism is an academic advantage.
What About in the Early Years?
Here’s the only caveat: in very early childhood (ages 2 to 4), bilingual children sometimes have slightly lower vocabulary counts in any single language compared to monolingual peers. This is completely normal and expected.
But this early difference doesn’t predict academic outcomes. In fact, it’s reversed by early elementary school. Bilingual children catch up in vocabulary (because they usually have higher total vocabulary across both languages) and then surpass monolingual peers on academic measures.
More importantly, the early vocabulary difference is so small and so quickly resolved that it’s not a sign of a problem or a reason to stop bilingual exposure. You’re not sacrificing your child’s academic future by raising them bilingual in the early years.
How to Set Your Child Up for School Success in Both Languages
If you want to maximize your child’s academic advantages from bilingualism, focus on consistency and rich language exposure in both languages. Inconsistent bilingual exposure might mean your child develops more strongly in one language than the other, which changes the pattern of benefits.
Rich language exposure means conversation, reading, storytelling, and diverse vocabulary across different contexts — not just passively hearing language or limited daily interaction.
This is where having a structured approach helps. For a comprehensive guide to building consistent, rich bilingual exposure throughout your child’s early years, see our article on how much Spanish exposure your child needs. It breaks down the research on exposure levels and shows you what “rich exposure” actually looks like in practice.
Also check out our guide to bilingual development milestones. Understanding what’s typical for bilingual children at each age helps you feel confident that your child is developing normally, even if they’re slightly behind in any single language in the early years.
And for building literacy specifically, see our guide to bilingual books for toddlers. Early literacy exposure is one of the strongest predictors of later academic success, and building it bilingually sets your child up for advantages.
Share This With Skeptics
If your child’s teacher, your pediatrician, or a family member expresses concern about bilingualism affecting school performance, you have actual research to share. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association supports bilingual development. The American Academy of Pediatrics supports bilingual exposure. The research consistently shows academic benefits.
You’re not making a sentimental choice to keep Spanish alive in your family (though that’s valuable too). You’re making an academically smart choice. Your child’s brain is literally developing stronger cognitive capacities because of bilingual exposure.
Want to share the research with people who question your bilingual approach? Download our free bilingual resources guide. It includes summaries of key research on bilingualism and academic benefits, so you have studies and data to back up your decisions.
Your Child’s Bilingual Future
Here’s the bottom line: raising your child bilingual is not a risk to their academic success. It’s an investment in it. You’re not choosing between English proficiency and Spanish — you’re building English proficiency faster and stronger by adding bilingual development to the mix.
Your child will learn English. They’ll learn to read in English. They’ll succeed academically in English. And they’ll do all of it better and faster because their bilingual brain is working differently than a monolingual brain. That difference is an advantage.
For a complete program that builds bilingual development strategically across ages 2 to 5, positioning bilingualism as the academic asset it actually is, our 12-Month Bilingual Curriculum ($250) is built on research-backed approaches to language exposure, literacy development, and cognitive growth through bilingualism.
Your child’s bilingual brain is an academic advantage. Now you know the research backs that up.
Author Bio
Hi, I’m Lindsey Carleton, MA, CCC-SLP, a bilingual speech-language pathologist with more than 11 years of experience and a fellow toddler mom. I created Palabra Garden to support families who want intentional, play-based learning at home.
Through my work as an SLP, I’ve seen how powerful early language, social-emotional development, and hands-on learning can be for toddlers and preschool-aged children. Palabra Garden brings those same principles into your home with bilingual activities, preschool curriculum ideas, and simple strategies that support growing minds.
I believe children learn best through connection, curiosity, and everyday moments of discovery.
