Slide 1

Slide 2

Basic, even if small, foundation in understanding Chinese gives parents confidence Lots that parents can and should do to help their children with Chinese.

Slide 3

Be able to follow along as child reads Get character AND character/pinyin versions of classroom fluency practices Read pinyin to sing songs together Pinyin is the standard romanization system used for Mandarin

Slide 4

No tones needed when singing! zhu ni sheng ri kuai le (repeat 4x) Literally: Wish you birth/lifedayhappy When spoken, add tones: zh n shng r kui l

Slide 5

https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php Complete list of all Pinyin sounds

Slide 6

nio d o sh d o Bird Island is an island; nio d o yu ni o Bird Island has birds. nio d o de ni o du de sh b qng le The birds on Bird Island are countless. yo xi ng do nio d o If you wish to go to Bird Island, y dng yo i ni o you must love birds. n b i xio ni o If you don't love small birds, ji bi do nio d o don't go to Bird Island. Tongue Twister Pinyin Read-a-long Practice

Slide 7

Some characters are based on drawings or concepts Above: turtle, mountain, fire up, down Right: door/gate

Slide 8

Characters are usually combinations: Two drawings or two meanings... Characters are likely a Sound/Meaning combination Ex: Have the sound gu from their part: =roof + pig = home/family = roof +cow = pen/prison = sun+moon= bright, light =wood+wood+wood =forest

Slide 9

Ask, What is the bushou? (b sh u Radical) The radical meaning woman is in words for mother , marry , little sister , good Others: eye, water, power, knife, insect, dry, hand, spear, fire, ice, field, heart, mouth, sickness, silk...

Slide 10

Examples from characters with part for sound gu With radical for woman = paternal aunt With radical for enclosure = solid With radical for insect = mole cricket With radical for gold [metal] = cobalt

Slide 11

Compound words make sense! electric-brain, electric-vision, electric-talk These have fire in the word: train, match, volcano, very mad, turkey, rocket, Mars electric-brain = computer, electric-vision = television, electric-talk= telephone train = fire-vehicle; match = fire-kindling; volcano=fire-mountain; very mad= fire-big; turkey= fire-chicken; rocket=fire-arrow; Mars = fire-star

Slide 12

Use the clues (pictures, sound parts, bushou/radical, etc.) Encourage guessing Master dictionary skills

Slide 13

Sample questions to prompt guessing strategies Could the character be a picture? Do you recognize any pieces of it? What sound does that piece have? Do you know any words with that sound? What is the bushou?

Slide 14

Get stroke order right from the start Practice calligraphy (water only version or real ink) Download practice apps Feel the characters: wax sticks creations, sand, soap lather, back scratches

Slide 15

Have a common language to use to describe the [basically only] eight kinds of strokes

Slide 16

Goal: be able to see characters well enough to recognize its match, to make sure are looking up the right character

Slide 17

Use games: Speed drills --how many in a minute Stroke countdown--guess in as few strokes as possible Game apps Watch online animations Invent zany character stories and mnemonics

Slide 18

End your print desert Use technology: Toggle between languages, pinyin/characters, sound/mute More than books: subtitles, menus, signs, tongue twisters... (e.g. concert DVD, exercise video, food packaging, online chats) Move up: Add idioms; recognize trad. characters

Slide 19

More on reading: Read to get more context Get in Chinese reading habit from start Check out area libraries Try graphic novels Move beyond baby level books, though hard to match reading level to age/English reading level

Slide 20

Join groups; follow blogs e.g. Mandarin Immersion Parents Council and Elizabeth Weise: look at their Resources lists Share great finds Examples of efforts: peer reading groups, online chats in Chinese, Chinese-language martial arts instruction, Chinese- language barbers, poetry/speech competition, host exchange student, adopt a grandparent, read to a toddler

Slide 21

Dictionary links: Try Pleco; Hippodict free versions (Tip: use v to input sound) Yes!Chinese leveled readers, see index at http://www.yes-chinese.com/reading/list.do?type=1&level=GR-K&topic= http://www.yes-chinese.com/reading/list.do?type=1&level=GR-K&topic Sample story: http://www.yes-chinese.com/reading/view.do?id=20110726083026 and bedtime stories: http://www.yes-chinese.com/story/index.jsphttp://www.yes-chinese.com/reading/view.do?id=20110726083026 pcbaby.com.cn for stories: http://book.pcbaby.com.cn/gushi for idiom/history stories: http://book.pcbaby.com.cn/guoxue/sj/ for learning characters: http://edu.pcbaby.com.cn/book/zwsz/donghua/ http://book.pcbaby.com.cn/gushi http://book.pcbaby.com.cn/guoxue/sj/ http://welearntv.vansd.org/chinese-immersion-program Teachers in Vancouver Washingtons program have made videos of reading books aloud http://welearntv.vansd.org/chinese-immersion-program

Slide 22

(Links Continued) HowDoILearnChinese.com http://howdoilearnchinese.com/ several games for fruit, body parts, colors etc.; two very catchy songs for learning greetings and Please give me... http://howdoilearnchinese.com/ FluentU Free content includes videos such as recent TV commercials, songs, etc. but captioned in English, Chinese and pinyin, with vocabulary help. Sorted by difficulty level. Registration needed. http://www.fluentu.com/chinese/ http://www.fluentu.com/chinese/ Silly Lilly, Stinky and a couple other kids books in different languages incl. Chinese http://www.professorgarfield.org/toon_book_reader/index.html http://www.professorgarfield.org/toon_book_reader/index.html 36 Chinese Characters story told with animated pictographs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VhOCX5WLpw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VhOCX5WLpw The animation of Chinese character http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4bwDfO2h28 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4bwDfO2h28 International Childrens Digital Library so far has 10 titles in Chinese http://en.childrenslibrary.org/

Slide 23

(Links continued) Mandarin Immersion Parents Council San Francisco Mandarin parents website was so popular they started a national version miparentscouncil.org A Parents Guide To Mandarin Immersion, coming fall 2014 by Elizabeth Weise, Mandarin Immersion Parents Council webmaster Blog by U.S. mom raising bilingual kids http://haomama.us/ http://haomama.us/ Utah dual language immersion materials utahchineseimmersion.orgsite not working? Utah Mandarin Immersion Parent Council http://utahimmersioncouncil.org/ ChildRoad subscription stories (downloadable, free trial) https://www.childroad.com/s/ https://www.childroad.com/s/

Slide 24

(Links continued) Taiwans Ministry of Culture many book selections; subtitles in trad. characters http://children.moc.gov.tw/home.php Beginning Mandarin lessons by PeaceCorp pronunciation not by native speaker, but topics covered are good http://wws.peacecorps.gov/wws/multimedia/language/lessons.cfm http://wws.peacecorps.gov/wws/multimedia/language/lessons.cfm Talking Chinese app, for beginning to learn Chinese, by FLTRP (Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press) Chineasy by ShaoLan Hsueh here is her TED talk video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=troxvPRmZm8 Calligraphy Practice For INKLESS practice, shop online for magic water painting paper or magic cloth for water brush painting or Chinese calligraphy practice sheet water only. Also available for purchase locally.