Teaching Chinese at Home

[LNHQ]

Hi Wan


Thanks for the advise…will think through

[LNHQ]

Hi laughingcat


Thanks, will have a look too

[bktan02]

Hi all


My son is in K2 and he only recently shown interest in Chinese. He likes English very much and can read many English books and using dictionary to find unknown words. But his Chinese seem quite weak compare to his English so I am quite worry.

I bought the 1st book of 四五快读 and 1st two books of 基础汉字500 and start teaching him few days ago. He can read the words after teaching quite fast but some words still can’t write. Should I teach him learn writing the words too? I have ordered the other 7 四五快读books from Dangdang and waiting them to arrive. Should I buy the other books of 基础汉字 or anyone can recommend any good books? Thanks!

[bktan02]

Anyone know where to get these books? I can't find them at Causeway Point Popular, thanks!

tamarind:

milo66:

Hi Tamarind, need some advise from you. Saw that you home school your boy in K2... how do u find it, is tat ok?

Our family will be relocating this June and my boy will be missing his K2 in Singapore. System in US seems so relax until I am so worried he is unable to cope with P1 here.

Have read through your blog and am doing some work with him everyday hoping to understand where is his weakness.

For Chinese, he is currently attending enrichment at JG and am doing 四五快读 with him at home. Thankfully so far so good. When I am over there, will conc on 四五快读, read and speak more chinese + self given ting xie be sufficient? Thanks for ur advise

Hi milo66,
I actually did not spend much time teaching my boy everyday since I am a full time working mum. I am very happy with his standards of English, and amazed by the amount of general knowledge that he has learned by reading on his own. His Chinese is not as good as his older sister, but already much better than the average kids his age.

Teaching English and Chinese at home is definitely possible even for working parents if you can get good resources.

If you can finish 四五快读 before he enters P1, and make sure that he remembers every word in the 6 books by constant revision, then he will definitely be more than well prepared for P1 Also, try to make him read at least 500 to 1000 words out loud from a good Chinese picture book every day, this is excellent for practicing oral skills. Make sure you get as many good Chinese story books as possible, dangdang.com ships worldwide.

After he has completed 四五快读, you should start to teach him hanyu pinyin. I don't have any resources for hanyu pinyin, will post here if I find any.

For writing, get these books to learn about the different names of 部首 and also practice writing :
https://www.popular.com.sg/images/product/book/70341.jpg\">
https://www.popular.com.sg/images/product/book/70344.jpg\">

Don't make him write the same words many times a day. Instead, teach him to write one or two simple sentences about what he has done every day.

[jenao]

Hi, for those who have used SWKD, if you have finished one bk and moved on to another bk say finished bk 1 and move to bk 2, do you still revise the lessons in bk1? Or is it sufficient to revise those in bk 2 since some of the words will be repeated? And when you move to higher level say bk 5 or 6, do you also revise bk 2, 3 or 4? Wondering how often do you have to go back to the earlier books.


Appreciate your reply.

[Musings]

jenao:

Hi, for those who have used SWKD, if you have finished one bk and moved on to another bk say finished bk 1 and move to bk 2, do you still revise the lessons in bk1? Or is it sufficient to revise those in bk 2 since some of the words will be repeated? And when you move to higher level say bk 5 or 6, do you also revise bk 2, 3 or 4? Wondering how often do you have to go back to the earlier books.


Appreciate your reply.

We always revise the previous lesson or previous 2 lessons even when we start a new lesson. So each night, we cover 1 new lesson and 2 previous lessons. By the time my DS finish a book, I was quite confident he knew at least 90% of the stuff in that book.

By the time we finish book 3, we also read other simple books which have the characters/vocab he had learnt each night on top of the SWKD lessons. I find that helps a lot as he can see how the vocab is used in stories etc - all these help him retain in his long term memory.

It is rather tedious and took us 9 months of daily learning before finishing the 6 books. But now that we have not used the books for half a year, I know he still retain about 80% of the SWKD vocab in long term memory and the balance 20%, he just needs some reminder so I find going slow and thorough works for us at least.

[Siew Woon]

Hi,


Wow, you guys are very concerned about your children proficiency in Chinese Language. I have proper Chinese language education for more than 13 years. I understand that Chinese is such a difficult language to the children nowadays. Beside, sending your children to tuition, you can try to buy supplement learning materials to enhance your children language.
Here are some the links to purchase good Chinese language books. These books are cheap yet effective for students to improve Chinese language.
For beginner, http://sg.hoyoyo.com/?s=category&type=taobao&keyword=JUU1JTg4JTlEJUU3JUJBJUE3JUU1JThEJThFJUU4JUFGJUFE&categoryId=0
For intermediary, http://sg.hoyoyo.com/?s=category&type=taobao&keyword=JUU0JUI4JUFEJUU3JUJBJUE3JUU1JThEJThFJUU4JUFGJUFE&categoryId=0

[jenao]

Thanks musings. I guess we were not consistent in doing SWKD. Ds seem to have forgotten some of the words in Bk 1 and so we are going back to reinforce those words. So far, bk 2 is quite good as we are more consistent doing it daily.

[Wan]

jenao,

If u know which are the words from book 1 that ur DS kept forgetting, suggest u pick up those word cards to play with, or find other books or use 故事集bk8 with these words to reinforce the meaning. I don’t think have to strictly follow the sequence. I also use Bk7 to find words with same 部首& explain the rationale of 象形文字bcos my son is a visual learner. I’m teaching a P1 & K1 using 四五快读，but they learn differently. Need to adapt to situation bah

[laughingcat]

Hi mummies,


The 基础汉字500 实力级 (level 5) are out at popular bookstore.