Progress on my project Regaurding the Integration of Spanish-Speaking preschoolers in the Memphis Area

When I spoke to Mr. Branch about my project on Tuesday of last week, I was prepared to speak on the progression of the Spanish-speaking preschoolers I had, and continue to volunteer with at the Kid's Corner across the parking lot from Southwest's Macon campus. I was not however prepared to speak well on the rising population of Hispanics in the city or the fiscal roles they play. In addition to addressing these issues, I have also been looking into references in response to academic development in Spanish youth who learn English as a second language. From the profiles of U of M faculty and staff that i had previously scanned I found a book edited by D. Kimbrough Oller, PhD, "Language and Literacy in Bilingual Children", which I intend to use, and an e-mail address I can contact him through. I also found a guide from the White House Initiative on Education that details where a child of four to five years old should be concerning language development. I can use this as an arbitrary method of gauging further progression, and with the comparison of the children who speak English as a second language to those who are monolingual in English. While my project's focus is on the development of a second language in preschooler's, in a study I read regarding the subject I learned that suggests that children who learn to speak multiple languages have greater cognitive capacity and flexibility in comparison with monolingual children and that further research on the subject may help better define positive affects of bilingualism and how a child's brain interprets language and writing tasks. With the high influx of Latinos, Memphis has a unique opportunity to expand its intellectual market and improve its educational standing by studying this occurrence.