Teaching Chinese at Home
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dimsum:
Wow your boy is good! My 4yo boy refused to continue after a few lessons in book 1 and so I switched to ji chu han zi 500 which is more colorful with interesting cartoons. Maybe I'll try the siwukuaidu again after awhile or alternate between the 2 sets of books.Thanks to tamarind, my 4yo boy completed the 6 books. He took about 1 year. And because of all the ravings about berries on this forum, I signed him up for one K1 term this year to satisfy my curiosity. After his 1st lesson, he brought back the term1 reading and activity book. Oh dear, it was too easy. I probably will stop after 2 terms.
So conclusion: siwukuaidu is CHEAP and Good! Daily 10-15min learning (or 3-4x a week) is much more effective than a once a week lesson. -
minnie2004:
Hi minnie2004,
Wow your boy is good! My 4yo boy refused to continue after a few lessons in book 1 and so I switched to ji chu han zi 500 which is more colorful with interesting cartoons. Maybe I'll try the siwukuaidu again after awhile or alternate between the 2 sets of books.dimsum:
Thanks to tamarind, my 4yo boy completed the 6 books. He took about 1 year. And because of all the ravings about berries on this forum, I signed him up for one K1 term this year to satisfy my curiosity. After his 1st lesson, he brought back the term1 reading and activity book. Oh dear, it was too easy. I probably will stop after 2 terms.
So conclusion: siwukuaidu is CHEAP and Good! Daily 10-15min learning (or 3-4x a week) is much more effective than a once a week lesson.
Did you try the games suggested by the book ? My boy always have a lot of fun playing those games which are quite effective in making him pay attention and learn the words. -
tamarind:
Would like to share how I used the Si Wu Kuai Du with my DS who is dyslexic.Parents should try to read this page from the Si Wu Kuai Du series before they buy the books.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_w1nyHWTEh94/SzQMM0_2kGI/AAAAAAAABas/fiu6YIcA5gk/s1600-h/b2.JPG
First of all, dear Tamarind, a big big :thankyou: for generously sharing teaching of Chinese using Si Wu Kuai Du series. A kind friend got her business contact to bring back a set of the books for me (can't remember from Shanghai or Beijing, costing SGD37 for the whole set) and I've started them with my DS during the Nov hols in 2010 (at the end of Pri 1).
I know this might seem rather late to start a child on SWKD only at 7 yrs old but DS is dyslexic. Diagnosed when he was in K2 and so we were focussing on intervention for reading and writing and Chinese (hanyu pinyin and word recognition) sort of take a back seat for a while.
Somehow through intervention at Dyslexic Society and the kind patience and his Pri 1 teachers - by the middle of P1, he managed to do hanyu pinyin but word recognition was still tough for him - we have had to do 字宝宝 every day, and despite that, there are still some words (有，在，再) etc that proof difficult for him to remember. So 造句 and 理解 are challenging.
I stumpled upon Tamarind's sharing and decided to use the year end hols to try out SWKD with DS. The strategies taught in the first part of Book 1 are definitely useful.
DS is a pictorial chap and could remember the characters better if I could point out to him the pictorial representation of the character (eg. 拿 手合起来才能拿到东西）, or to make sense of the character using 部首 （才 - relating to hand actions, 月 - relating to face or body).
As DS is older and has a good command of spoken Chinese, our lessons will start with revising the words previously learnt, and introduction of new characters which I will incorporate 'stories'to make word recognition easier, and he would also share with me how the word could be used. Besides word recognition, DS could read the sentences and short passages more fluently than before.
We have worked our way through Book 3 and were starting on Book 4 when the new school year reopens. Progress in Book 4 is rather slow but the rewarding thing is DS realised that he could read some of the characters in his P2 Chinese text as he had come across them in SWKD (eg. 照 as in 照顾). This gives him the confidence in class and he realised that doing SWKD with me everyday has paid off.
This must have been a big motivator for DS as, of late, he looks forward to work on the SWKD and would ask me to do it immediately after breakfast. That prompted me to share this in KSP.
My apologies for the long post, but it is certainly something to celebrate for us :celebrate: -
Books for creative writing
I recently bought these 2 sets of books for creative writing.
大鼻子李教授新体验作文
http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=9268385&ref=order-2-A
小学生作文起跑线
http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=9268431&ref=order-2-A
I bought P1 to P6 for both sets, which have hundreds of good comments by customers. When it first arrived, I was disappointed about the paper quality, and the words are small. But when I read through the books, I find that they are better than any Chinese creative writing books that are sold in Singapore. I think that first set is better than the second set, because the size is bigger. The second set is smaller than half of A4 size, but it has more good comments.
I haven't used these books yet, so I am not sure how effective they will be for my kids. Both sets require kids to be already reading quite well, otherwise they may be scared off by the small words. P1 and P2 includes hanyu pinyin. From P3 onwards, the standard is very much higher than what our schools can teach. I suspect that all the Chinese creative writing classes in Singapore probably use the same ideas and methods, but at a lower standard.
I think these books are good for parents who are strong in Chinese, and do not feel like wasting money to send their kids to creative writing classes. Parents who are not used to reading in Chinese, will find these books difficult to use, but if they are employing private tutors for their kids, then these books are excellent resources.
If we want our kids to do as well in Chinese as kids from mainland China, then we should get the books that are used by them
I want to emphasize again that I have not used these books yet, and I think it does require effort to use. But I am quite sure that if kids finish the P6 books, they will be writing very good compositions. -
MyBaby:
MyBaby,
Would like to share how I used the Si Wu Kuai Du with my DS who is dyslexic.tamarind:
Parents should try to read this page from the Si Wu Kuai Du series before they buy the books.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_w1nyHWTEh94/SzQMM0_2kGI/AAAAAAAABas/fiu6YIcA5gk/s1600-h/b2.JPG
First of all, dear Tamarind, a big big :thankyou: for generously sharing teaching of Chinese using Si Wu Kuai Du series. A kind friend got her business contact to bring back a set of the books for me (can't remember from Shanghai or Beijing, costing SGD37 for the whole set) and I've started them with my DS during the Nov hols in 2010 (at the end of Pri 1).
I know this might seem rather late to start a child on SWKD only at 7 yrs old but DS is dyslexic. Diagnosed when he was in K2 and so we were focussing on intervention for reading and writing and Chinese (hanyu pinyin and word recognition) sort of take a back seat for a while.
Somehow through intervention at Dyslexic Society and the kind patience and his Pri 1 teachers - by the middle of P1, he managed to do hanyu pinyin but word recognition was still tough for him - we have had to do 字宝宝 every day, and despite that, there are still some words (有，在，再) etc that proof difficult for him to remember. So 造句 and 理解 are challenging.
I stumpled upon Tamarind's sharing and decided to use the year end hols to try out SWKD with DS. The strategies taught in the first part of Book 1 are definitely useful.
DS is a pictorial chap and could remember the characters better if I could point out to him the pictorial representation of the character (eg. 拿 手合起来才能拿到东西）, or to make sense of the character using 部首 （才 - relating to hand actions, 月 - relating to face or body).
As DS is older and has a good command of spoken Chinese, our lessons will start with revising the words previously learnt, and introduction of new characters which I will incorporate 'stories'to make word recognition easier, and he would also share with me how the word could be used. Besides word recognition, DS could read the sentences and short passages more fluently than before.
We have worked our way through Book 3 and were starting on Book 4 when the new school year reopens. Progress in Book 4 is rather slow but the rewarding thing is DS realised that he could read some of the characters in his P2 Chinese text as he had come across them in SWKD (eg. 照 as in 照顾). This gives him the confidence in class and he realised that doing SWKD with me everyday has paid off.
This must have been a big motivator for DS as, of late, he looks forward to work on the SWKD and would ask me to do it immediately after breakfast. That prompted me to share this in KSP.
My apologies for the long post, but it is certainly something to celebrate for us :celebrate:
I am very happy to know that you find the Si Wu Kuai Du books helpful. I think your post will definitely motivate other parents to teach their kids Chinese
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MyBaby, thanks for sharing! It’s a very inspiring post!!
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tamarind:
No no, it's really because of the excellent teaching material, SWKD.
Hi dimsum,dimsum:
Thanks to tamarind, my 4yo boy completed the 6 books. He took about 1 year. And because of all the ravings about berries on this forum, I signed him up for one K1 term this year to satisfy my curiosity. After his 1st lesson, he brought back the term1 reading and activity book. Oh dear, it was too easy. I probably will stop after 2 terms.
So conclusion: siwukuaidu is CHEAP and Good! Daily 10-15min learning (or 3-4x a week) is much more effective than a once a week lesson.
Your boy is impressive ! Berries K2 may be easy for him too
Have you started to teach him hanyu pinyin yet ?
Yes one of the best thing about Si Wu Kuai Du is that it is so cheap ! I think it is the cheapest set of learning materials around, and yet it teaches so much more than others.
Now that you ask, I don't know how to teach him HYPY. Do you have any good materials to recommend? One issue I am facing is he really detests writing. In school, he doesn't want to follow the teacher's instructions to practise writing the strokes. Always receive the same feedback from his English and Chinese teachers about his poor penmanship. Sigh!
The Chinese teacher asked me to let him practise more at home. Uh? How to? Are the teachers too kancheong? -
tamarind:
Well, it is certainly a learning journey for me as well as parenting DS is so different from parenting my DD who is in Pri6.
MyBaby,
I am very happy to know that you find the Si Wu Kuai Du books helpful. I think your post will definitely motivate other parents to teach their kids Chinese
For DD, we \"outsource\" alot to enrichment centres. For DS, when he was in K1, we enrolled him in the same centre that DD used to attend when DD was at that age. After a few lessons, the teacher \"complained\" that DS is the only one in the class who can't do hanyu pinyin and that is certainly very demoralising for a 4 yr old kid.
Then we switched to another centre and the teachers \"complained\" that he could not copy characters from the white board properly and is untidy.
Then his child care centre \"complained\" that he could not write his Chinese name at the end of K1 - which apparently is something that all the other kids could do in order to move up to K2.
So, mummy decides to take over and hence the search on the internet for resources and am I glad to stumble upon SWKD
So Tamarind, when you wrote \"your post will definitely motivate other parents to teach their kids Chinese\", I really 不敢当 - more driven by circumstances rather than by choice. But I got to say that it is a wonderful journey for both DS and I. -
MyBaby:
Very Happy for you. It is always very encouraging to read of the success stories from other parents. Good luck with the rest of the series.
Would like to share how I used the Si Wu Kuai Du with my DS who is dyslexic.
First of all, dear Tamarind, a big big :thankyou: for generously sharing teaching of Chinese using Si Wu Kuai Du series. A kind friend got her business contact to bring back a set of the books for me (can't remember from Shanghai or Beijing, costing SGD37 for the whole set) and I've started them with my DS during the Nov hols in 2010 (at the end of Pri 1).
I know this might seem rather late to start a child on SWKD only at 7 yrs old but DS is dyslexic. Diagnosed when he was in K2 and so we were focussing on intervention for reading and writing and Chinese (hanyu pinyin and word recognition) sort of take a back seat for a while.
Somehow through intervention at Dyslexic Society and the kind patience and his Pri 1 teachers - by the middle of P1, he managed to do hanyu pinyin but word recognition was still tough for him - we have had to do 字宝宝 every day, and despite that, there are still some words (有，在，再) etc that proof difficult for him to remember. So 造句 and 理解 are challenging.
I stumpled upon Tamarind's sharing and decided to use the year end hols to try out SWKD with DS. The strategies taught in the first part of Book 1 are definitely useful.
DS is a pictorial chap and could remember the characters better if I could point out to him the pictorial representation of the character (eg. 拿 手合起来才能拿到东西）, or to make sense of the character using 部首 （才 - relating to hand actions, 月 - relating to face or body).
As DS is older and has a good command of spoken Chinese, our lessons will start with revising the words previously learnt, and introduction of new characters which I will incorporate 'stories'to make word recognition easier, and he would also share with me how the word could be used. Besides word recognition, DS could read the sentences and short passages more fluently than before.
We have worked our way through Book 3 and were starting on Book 4 when the new school year reopens. Progress in Book 4 is rather slow but the rewarding thing is DS realised that he could read some of the characters in his P2 Chinese text as he had come across them in SWKD (eg. 照 as in 照顾). This gives him the confidence in class and he realised that doing SWKD with me everyday has paid off.
This must have been a big motivator for DS as, of late, he looks forward to work on the SWKD and would ask me to do it immediately after breakfast. That prompted me to share this in KSP.
My apologies for the long post, but it is certainly something to celebrate for us :celebrate: -
tamarind:
Did you try the games suggested by the book ? My boy always have a lot of fun playing those games which are quite effective in making him pay attention and learn the words.
Thanks tamarind! I'll go thru the first 30 pages again and try some of the games
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