5 Concepts You Must Know When Deciding What Age Your Child Should Learn Pronunciation (above)
Are you hesitating to let your child learn phonetics early in kindergarten? Should you start with a Pinyin class or a P1 preparatory class? Should you transfer your child from public school to private school in order to make your child's transition to Primary 1 smoother? Read this article before you make a decision. It will help you clarify the ultimate goal of phonics learning, as well as show you the impact of phonics on language proficiency through empirical research.
It has become a peculiar phenomenon that parents in Taiwan are highly concerned about their children's learning of phonetic transcription.
"If BPM is not taught in public schools, do I need to take extra classes?" Every year, after the lottery results for public kindergartens are released, some parents ask similar questions in parent-child groups, not feeling like they've won the lottery, but worrying about whether their children are losing out on their learning. Another group of anxious parents are those whose children will soon be promoted to Primary 1. Some decided to transfer their children from public to private kindergartens in order to have a smooth transition to the elementary school curriculum, or asked around to find out which orthophonic classes and Primary 1 preparatory classes are better, so they are prepared to let their children have special training in the summer vacation.
Behind these anxieties, the common concern is that it will be very difficult for the children to go to elementary school without learning the phonetic transcription first.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) has stipulated that the teaching of phonetic symbols is part of the Mandarin curriculum for the first 10 weeks of the first semester of Primary 1, and not a curriculum goal for the language area of kindergartens. However, under the ambiguous preschool phonetic transcription policy, almost all private kindergartens teach phonetic transcription, with the difference being that some begin teaching it in the first semester of elementary school, while others teach it in the second semester of the first semester of kindergarten; public kindergartens do not teach it all the time, and some of them will let children have the initial concept of the phonetic transcription, but will not enter into the phonetic transcription. The difference in the starting point of pinyin teaching between public and private kindergartens has undoubtedly deepened parents' fear. Secondly, after the first 10 weeks of elementary school, children will have to face the "Pinyin Assembly Exam", which is the first assessment of their lives, whether it is a test of their listening and writing skills, and the results of the Pinyin Exam will test the self-confidence of both parents and their children in learning.
Love of reading is more important than note grades:Are you considering whether or not to let your child learn phonics earlier? Here are 5 key concepts to consider before deciding what age your child should learn phonics:
Idea 1. The ultimate goal of learning phonics is to help with reading.
Pronunciation is the medium that connects "language" and "text", and it not only assists in recognizing Chinese characters correctly, but also helps to improve the pronunciation of Chinese characters.
Pronunciation, when a child can spell sounds with the 37 phonetic symbols, can be used to learn new words, but the more important goal behind it is to move into independent reading with this tool.
Dr. S.J. Tseng, Dean of Taitung University's College of Normal StudiesIt is pointed out that in ancient times, without phonetic transcription, learners had to spend a long time memorizing hundreds or thousands of Chinese characters before they could enter the state of reading, but the systematic teaching of phonetic transcription allows young children to learn in a short period of time, and to link the known vocabulary with phonetic transcription to cross over into the world of reading. In addition, phonics learning in preschool is also recognized by academics as a way to help prevent reading difficulties in high-risk groups of children (e.g., disadvantaged children in remote villages and those with learning disabilities), and to identify and compensate for disadvantaged children as early as possible.
Professor Ke Huawei of the Department of Education and Learning Technology at Tsinghua University also believes that when children learn the phonetic transcription at an early age, they do not need to wait for adults to be available, and can open the window to explore knowledge and the world of imagination through pinyin on their own.
Concept 2. Learning Chinese doesn't have to start with phonetic transcription.
Zhuyin is not the only way to learn Chinese, nor is it a necessary condition for reading Chinese. Currently, Taiwan is the only country in the world that uses phonetic transcription to learn Chinese. In the same Chinese-speaking regions, Mainland China adopts Hanyu Pinyin, and Hong Kong even adopts Direct Literacy. In Taiwan, there have been proposals from time to time to abolish phonetic transcription and replace it with Hanyu Pinyin in order to keep up with international standards, all of which have been highly debated. Tseng Shih-chieh believes that either type of pinyin is good to learn, but considering that there are already hundreds of thousands of volumes of young children's books that are annotated with phonetic symbols, Taiwan has the most advanced pinyin system in the world, and the most advanced pinyin system in the world.
The most convenient environment for learning pronunciation.
Teachers and adults of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies Professor Cheung Kam-yu said that the phonetic symbols can help children to establish the relationship between the shape of Chinese characters, deepen their understanding, but did not learn the phonetic symbols, some children through a large number of reading and enough experience in the written word, can also directly recognize the words and understand the meaning of the key lies in the early parent-child co-reading, as well as appropriateFinger reading strategy guideThe Government has also been working on a number of initiatives to improve the quality of education in the community. In addition, throughUnderstanding Radicals, Breaking Down the Parts, and the Simple Principle of Six Book Character FormationIt's also a great way to build up your vocabulary quickly.
5 Concepts You Must Know When Deciding What Age Your Child Should Learn Pronunciation (below)
Are you worried that if your child doesn't learn the phonetic symbols in kindergarten, he or she won't be able to keep up in elementary school, or will not be able to learn Mandarin as well? Apart from the fact that it is important to understand the ultimate purpose of learning phonetic symbols, empirical studies also show that phonetic symbols only have a short-term effect on language proficiency, but in the long run, there are more important factors that affect language proficiency.
When a child enters elementary school from kindergarten, the first barrier to systematic learning is phonetic transcription. Under Taiwan's current Mandarin education system, phonetic transcription is regarded as a child's introduction to learning the Mandarin language, plus Mandarin is the foundation of all subjects, because a poor command of the Mandarin language can easily affect the understanding of other subjects, all these factors have deepened the anxiety of parents about their children's phonetic transcription, resulting in the fact that each year during the summer vacation, there are parents of new primary school students inquiring about the need to send their children to a phonetic transcription class in advance.
Regarding the age at which a child should learn the phonetic symbols, it is important for parents to understand what the purpose of learning phonetic symbols is. Phonetic symbols are only one of the pinyin tools used to learn Chinese, and ultimately, they are meant to help the child become an independent reader. Secondly, learning Chinese does not necessarily start with Zhuyin, including Taiwan'sWaldorf Laboratory SchoolIn Primary 1, the curriculum starts with recognizing national characters and then moves on to phonetic transcription. In the same Chinese-speaking regions, the Mainland adopts hanyu pinyin, while Hong Kong even adopts direct literacy.
At present, there is no standard answer in the academic community on the age at which young children should learn phonetics, because the developmental status of each child varies from person to person, and the suitable learning methods are not the same. However, it is worthwhile for parents to think about is that many children can recognize words and phonetic symbols early, but may not like to read, if the purpose of learning phonetic symbols early is to allow children to enjoy reading, not to rush to fill in the duck, gently put down the phonetic symbols always wrong results, so that children continue to maintain an interest in books, reading and learning may be more important.
Huang Huisheng, a teacher who has compared pinyin teaching in Mainland China and Taiwan, also reminded that learning pinyin early or late is not the key, because ultimately it is possible to learn it, and the key lies in the accompaniment of the parents. The key lies in the parents' accompaniment. Whether or not they are able to discover their children's learning needs and interests when they need it, and provide them with assistance, rather than looking at what others know and have learned, and then stuffing their own children with all kinds of knowledge, is the key to this "horse race of life". This is the most important mindset that parents should establish in this "marathon of life".
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