Teaching Chinese at Home
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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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MyBaby:
MyBaby,
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.tamarind:
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.
Though my older girl learned very well in Berries, there were lots of complains about my younger boy from his teachers in both Berries and kindergarten. That is why I have to put in a lot of effort to find resources to teach him at home. In fact, I have to teach him both English and Chinese, if not, he probably cannot read at all if I only depend on enrichment classes. So I am also driven by circumstances, sigh.... -
Hi
I am so glad I found this thread (i chance upon it while looking up topic on how to make my kid recognise chinese characters :lol: )
You mothers are amazing! I am a full time mother for past 1.5yrs and I am nowhere near you in terms of teaching chinese! I was really only focusing on maths and english.
I found chinese very tough to teach, though my chinese level is not bad. But after reading this thread randomly (too many pages to digest), i found its possible to teach chinese to my children myself! though i hope it is not too late, my kids just turned 3,5,7 end of 2010.
My P2 loves reading (too bad only eng books :(), any reading materials she gets hold of, she will read, to the extend we always have to stop her coz of mealtime, bedtime, homework time etc. I was a busy working mum but I recognized the impt of reading, hence when she was young we tried to read to her whenever we had time. But after I have #2 n #3, we lost focus on her (she was only 2yo when her meimei came along). Thank God she continued her reading journey herself. I am now trying to cultivate reading to #2 (who can read very well, but doesnt seem to love books as much as #1), but still not very sure how to make her love books :oops: As for #3, i am beginning (hehe bot the books/materials but not started) my journey of teaching phonics. He learnt single sound thru leapfrog DVD. My gals attended Zoophonics and served them well. For my son, i decided to teach him myself, save $ hehe since I am not working. Thank u Tamarind for sharing how to teach phonics in ur blog
You mothers are very inspiring and diligent. Reading this thread motivates me to teach my kids chinese. My P2 cant speak mandarin very well. In my own opinion, her chinese std is really so so only. However she is chosen to do HCL (not compulsory in her school) just because she has very good memory, hence can rem all characters the textbook teaches and she enjoys memorising simple poems and songs given by teacher. I was wondering how to help her improve her chinese coz i believe to a certain pt, memory only will not help. It is no pt She can rem all characters but cant put them to good use. And she doesnt like to read chinese story books :(. I shld try the methods/books reco in this thread. -
Oh and thank you all for sharing experience online shopping with dangdang.com. I encountered the same error msg, however I received email from them shortly indicating my order is being processed!
I hope my enthusiasm will last till the books reach me in 4-8 weeks time heh -
As i continue to read this thread... i almost fall from my chair... oh gosh, children are reading chinese novels like Jing Yong, I only watched the HK TV production hahah. Even mummies here read these novels, I have nvr picked up any chinese novels in my whole life, so paiseh to admit...and I am hoping my kids to pick them up 1 day ... :oops:
btw, my kids like books alot, #1 reads on her own and #2/#3 enjoy reading time (they will request for reading time thru'out the day but i am guilty of rejecting their request though i will read at least once a day). I attribute that to no computer and no gaming. They are not exposed to using computer or play games (computer, xbox, etc). if they play any kind of games, usually uno, board games. Any one of you think the same? or am I too paranoid abt such electronic stimulation?
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