Spanish Immersion preschool gives kids early exposure to bilingual benefits

This paid piece is sponsored by EmBe.

Ask incoming kindergartner Jay Billion what he does during the day, and he’ll usually tell you he plays with friends.

“But then he’ll surprise you randomly by breaking out in Spanish,” his mom, Kelsey, said. “He started the other day counting past 20 in Spanish. He doesn’t realize how much he’s learning, but he really is.”

Jay has spent the past two years in EmBe’s Spanish Immersion program, a highly interactive opportunity for kids age 3 through 5 to enjoy a one-of-a-kind curriculum taught in Spanish while providing an academically enriched environment.

“He loves his teachers,” Billion said. “He’s had the opportunity to do all the preschool fundamentals but also have wonderful teachers who have been able to share their language and culture in a way I couldn’t. We had some reservations at first – my husband had never learned Spanish – but you learn with your child in a fun way, and the program teaches you a lot of things along the way.”

The program, called Los Amigos, is held at EmBe’s downtown location and allows kids to use critical thinking skills with hands-on experiences in music, food and Latin culture. The curriculum also exposes young students to STEM, literacy, and fine and gross motor skills.

“We are the only preschool in Sioux Falls that is full immersion,” said teacher Karen Benitez-López, who leads the program. “And aside from speaking to the students and teaching academics in Spanish, we bring in people who can speak about culture, teach them about holidays and introduce them to food and music, so it’s a full experience in addition to learning a language.”

Benitez-López was born in Mexico and moved to Sioux Falls in the early 2000s as a preschooler herself. She began learning English at age 6.

“There are a lot of benefits for a child learning a different language, even if you don’t continue in adulthood, because different parts of the brain are being used early on,” she said.

Bilingualism has been shown to delay cognitive aging as an adult and help a child develop everything from executive function and reasoning to empathy, she added.

“When you see a kiddo pick something up in Spanish and see their eyes after learning something new, it makes everything worth it,” she said.

All EmBe Spanish Immersion teachers are native Spanish speakers. Kids in the program go on weekly field trips, and any child age 3 to 5 is eligible to attend.

“We’ve had folk dancers perform, we’ll go to a Mexican restaurant and the kids will know how to ask for juice in Spanish, and we’ve made pinatas and baked tortillas from scratch,” Benitez-López said.

“We even did a project with Natural Beauty greenhouse to teach kids about plants and protecting the Earth. We love the park and nature walks, anything that gets them out and learning hands-on. We’ll go to the zoo and talk about Spanish names for animals. The cost of your tuition covers all these experiences and supplies, so there are no extra field trip costs.”

Space is limited to about 20 students, though, with some openings expected for the coming school year beginning in August. Scholarships also are available.

“It’s small enough that it feels like your own little family there. Applications are first come, first serve and open year-round,” Benitez-López added.

“While we have many who go on to immersion elementary schools, not all do, and parents still choose this route to give the child an opportunity for a different type of preschool experience.”

Jay will continue in a dual-immersion elementary school program in the fall.

“He’s kind of nervous about kindergarten, but Spanish is such a normal part of his life. That part is totally normal,” Billion said.

Overall, the family is so pleased with Jay’s EmBe experience that his little brother will participate in the Spanish Immersion preschool too.

“It’s really benefited him and just opened his eyes a little bit more and given him more of an appreciation that there’s a big world out there and lots of people and ways to be,” Billion said.

“Hopefully, it’s a start to look for similarities with people and not the differences.”

To learn more about the Spanish Immersion preschool and for the enrollment form, click here.

The Spanish Immersion program is one of several offered through EmBe for preschoolers. All of EmBe’s preschool programming provides hands-on learning experiences that align with the Head Start child development and early learning framework and South Dakota early learning standards.

Additionally, Jr. KinderCollege and KinderCollege offer an all-day, advanced kindergarten-readiness preschool program focusing on phonics, reading readiness, relationship-building, social-emotional learning and field trips.