How to Keep Your Toddler's Spanish Going After Preschool Starts
By Palabra Garden
You spent a year or two building a bilingual foundation at home. Your toddler knows their colors in Spanish, sings along to “Los Pollitos Dicen,” and says “mas” at dinner without being prompted. Then they start preschool, and within a few weeks, everything seems to shift. They’re coming home speaking only English. They resist when you try Spanish. They tell you “I don’t want to speak Spanish — my friends don’t.”
This is the moment where the majority of bilingual families give up. Studies show that language attrition — the gradual loss of a language due to reduced exposure — can begin in as little as a few months when a child enters an English-dominant school environment. But attrition isn’t inevitable. Families who maintain consistent Spanish exposure at home during the school years raise children who are genuinely, durably bilingual. The key is knowing what to protect and how.
What this post covers
- Why School Changes Everything
- Strategy 1: Protect Your Spanish Routines
- Strategy 2: Make Spanish the Fun Language
- Strategy 3: Don’t Fight the English — Add to It
- Strategy 4: Increase Input Quality Since Quantity Drops
- Strategy 5: Build a Spanish Community
- What to Expect in the First Year of School
- Your Action Plan
This post is being migrated from the previous site. The full version originally appeared on palabragarden.com.