Teaching Chinese at Home

[tamarind]

Trapwithin and Brenda,

You are absolutely right that parents' involvement is most important.

hquek,
I am glad to know that Chinese reading is full of fun for your kids now, that is the way it should be ! It is great that your DS1 has no problem with tingxie, he has proved that a child who reads regularly will be able to write easily too.

ksme,
You are welcome Your ds has done very well progressing from comics to reading novels within 1 year !


ADave,
What is being taught in the speedy Chinese character recognition class ? If kids are taught to recognize individual Chinese characters, without relation to one another, then it is not going to be effective. Chinese words must be taught in context, like in sentences and short stories. Otherwise, kids may be able to recognize 1000 Chinese words, but they still do not know how to read or speak.
For parents who are not good in Chinese, my advise is to send the kids to well established enrichment classes like Berries or Tien Hsia. The teachers there know what are the correct methods of teaching Chinese.
I saw a poster in Tien Hsia showing many of their non-Chinese students who scored A/A* in Chinese.


lil_jade,
Reading to your child is not enough. Many kids just listen without looking at the words, or they do not pay attention at all. You can read hundreds of children's books to them, but they may still not know how to read.

The most effective method is to ask your child to read every word out loud. Then we can be sure that the child is paying attention and using his brain to think. Reading out loud is also very effective for practicing oral skills.

It will be difficult at first because there will be many words that your child do not know. So you need excellent learning resources. Berries has very good resources for teaching a child to read, that is why I sent both my kids there. But that was before I found the Si Wu Kuai Du series of books :
http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2009/12/teaching-chinese-at-home.html

Personally I think that these books are of a higher standard compared to Berries' materials. However, I recommend these books only to parents who are :
1. Very passionate to teach their kids at home
2. Quite good in Chinese, at least able to read and understand Chinese newspapers (please click on the photos of the pages below and try to read them)
3. Hardworking enough to spend at least 15 minutes teaching Chinese every day

It is very important to read and understand the instructions in the first 30 pages of book 1. Click on this link and see if you can read it :
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_w1nyHWTEh94/SzQMM0_2kGI/AAAAAAAABas/fiu6YIcA5gk/s1600-h/b2.JPG

[ADave]

tamarind, yeah its something like that…recognizing chinese characters. i tried a trial class in tien hsia…and i think my son dun like it. plus the teacher like couldnt be bother to engage him just cuz he doesnt respond to her. i think they are relieve that i didnt sign up! hahaha

[tamarind]

ADave:

tamarind, yeah its something like that..recognizing chinese characters. i tried a trial class in tien hsia..and i think my son dun like it. plus the teacher like couldnt be bother to engage him just cuz he doesnt respond to her. i think they are relieve that i didnt sign up! hahaha

Personally I feel that Berries is better than Tien Hsia. Both my kids were at Berries from 4 years old to 6 years old. Though now I regretted sending them there, not because they are not good, but because I \"suffered\" so much, sacrificing my weekends bringing them to classes. If only I have found the excellent Si Wu Kuai Du series of books earlier. But then for parents who are not strong in Chinese, or are too busy to teach at home, a good Chinese enrichment class is still the best alternative.

[ADave]

i totally agreed with you. I called Berries Orchard (bukit batok is fully booked!) and slot in a trial class this friday. I spoke to the centre staff and am really impressed with her. so patience explaining to me and a joy to talk to! I hope all the teachers there are like her. and i really really hope this time, my son will like it so that we can sign up the class for him.


i am not giving up, trying my very best to let him pick up the interest but if he is adamant abt not wanting to learn chinese, i guess it is to Plan B. And bye bye nan hua primary

[Brenda10]

Hi there, some interesting thing to share:


This morning having breakfast with dd and she told me her classmate wanted to quit as a head prefect. In view of her good leadership dd and others asked her to 三思.

I’m quite happy that dd know how to use this word and she told me during the show whenever 丞相 wanted to do something drastically and the rest of the 大臣would 异口同声 said 请丞相三思.

[pummanuel]

tamarind:

pummanuel,
Thanks for recommending 阿凡提. I will definitely order it

You're welcome, Tamarind. I hope your children will like it. Till today, all my siblings remember reading 阿凡提's books and watching 阿凡提's movies on TV.

[ksme]

Brenda10:

Hi there, some interesting thing to share:


This morning having breakfast with dd and she told me her classmate wanted to quit as a head prefect. In view of her good leadership dd and others asked her to 三思.

I’m quite happy that dd know how to use this word and she told me during the show whenever 丞相 wanted to do something drastically and the rest of the 大臣would 异口同声 said 请丞相三思.

Happy for you that your daughter is indeed picking up new vocab. btw, does your daughter attend any Chinese tuition or creative writing class?

[Brenda10]

ksme:

Happy for you that your daughter is indeed picking up new vocab. btw, does your daughter attend any Chinese tuition or creative writing class?

Thank you

We don't have Chinese tution in view of dd was doing quite well in her Paper 2.

As for compo, she went to RC once a week plus also written one at home which I will edit for her.

[pummanuel]

tamarind:

Personally I think that these books are of a higher standard compared to Berries' materials.

Yes, I agree with Tamarind that 《四五快读》 is better than Berries' materials. I bought 《四五快读》early 2010 when Tamarind first recommended it. I like the books but as I had several commitments then, I thought of outsourcing my daughter's Chinese for a year.

I went to Molin, Tien Hsia and Berries. Berries offers the best materials among the 3 centres but none of them was comparable to《四五快读》.

《四五快读》builds up the child's vocabulary better as it has 宝宝读词语 where the child gets exposed to a list of words, enabling the child to increase his vocabulary as the Chinese language is mainly about knowing 字 and then mix and match 字 to form 词语. In addition, 宝宝读句子 and 宝宝读短短文get the child to phrase 字 and 词语 learnt into sentences, allowing the child to grasp Chinese sentence structure, paving the way for reading books. This will be of great help in P1 when children are expected to sort out jumbled sentences. My nephew has great problems with this section, not to mention comprehension and composition.

Berries do have such objectives in its materials but the content is insufficient.

[toddles]

I’ve read the 30 pages, bought the daiso ziplocks for the flashcards…


now only to cut them up and get OFF my BUTT to start the 15 min a day sessions!! gosh I’m so inertia-ed. Part of my laziness stems from the fact that dd just entered N1 and I’m wondering whether she’ll be confused with the teaching in N1 (only 1 hr a day so sure no enough in the long run) if I also zhan3 kai1 my 《四五快读》xing2 dong4. Maybe I’ll talk to the lao shi when i get a chance.