One of the biggest differences or improvements in our Grade 3 textbook in comparison of the Grade 2 one is that it consists a variety of legends, myths, fables, and other stories. Most of them are Chinese and some of them were translated from foreign sources.
The third lesson of the textbook has two reading materials, one is a simplified version of the legend of Pangu (盘古开天地) and another is a fable of drawing snakes with feet (画蛇添足). My daughter read the reading the first one as part of her homework last night. Even though she could read the text fairly well by herself, she needed substantial help to understand the story. But she enjoyed the story a great deal. Because of the story itself, she probably spent quite a bit more time on it than she usually spent in reading material assignments.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
3rd Grade!
This past Sunday we started our first lesson of the 3rd grade book. Due to the unique design of this textbook series, the start of the 3rd grade is when they finally teach pinyin. The book plans to have four lessons in four weeks to cover the entire pinyin content, while also teaching some new characters. This suits us really well.
My daughter has learned pinyin several years ago when she was still attending our local Chinese school. Although her pronunciation still has much room to improve, she is remarkably well in knowing the pinyin system itself. So we really don't need to spend much time on it other than reviewing and having fun with some of the tongue-twisters designed to improve pronunciations.
This also looks to be four easy weeks, not only in the lessons but also in the homework load. As pinyin being the current focus, the homework is temporarily without character-dictation and sentence-making tasks, two of the more difficult ones for my daughter.
Things should be back to "normal" after the initial four weeks. :)
My daughter has learned pinyin several years ago when she was still attending our local Chinese school. Although her pronunciation still has much room to improve, she is remarkably well in knowing the pinyin system itself. So we really don't need to spend much time on it other than reviewing and having fun with some of the tongue-twisters designed to improve pronunciations.
This also looks to be four easy weeks, not only in the lessons but also in the homework load. As pinyin being the current focus, the homework is temporarily without character-dictation and sentence-making tasks, two of the more difficult ones for my daughter.
Things should be back to "normal" after the initial four weeks. :)
Monday, October 1, 2007
Grade Promotion, Finally!
It took quite a bit longer than we originally thought, but we finally finished the last lesson and review for the Book 3 or the 2nd grade. Next week, we will start our 3rd grade classes!
My daughter did pretty well in our last review class, during which we went through all the character cards and lesson texts of the Book 3. She was able to read all the lessons without the help of Pinyin and only had a little bit of hiccups when she was unsure of pronunciation of certain characters. Of the 136 new characters in this book, she was able to recognize over 100 of them, without any help of context.
In the meantime, the original excitement when we started with this 2nd grade textbook is wearing off dramatically. We have since settled into a routine of how the class progresses and my daughter is getting tired and sick of it.
For the lesson text, I usually start by reading the text myself for her. Then she reads after me sentence-by-sentence for a couple of times, which gives me opportunities to correct or refine some of the pronunciation problems. We will then finish by hearing her reading it all by herself for once. She felt that this process is a bit too long and tedious. We probably need to change the routine as we start our 3rd grade to keep her fresh and more interested.
The other big complain she has is when we go through the grammar rules in the book. When I explain the lesson, I usually already touch on most of the grammar points. The systematic illustration of the grammar after the lesson text seems to be boring for her. We usually go by them quickly and I am not sure how much attention she was paying for them anyway.
Curiously, the 3rd grade textbook seems to have little to nothing in the grammar teaching. The textbook is made up almost entirely with the lesson text and reading materials alone. It seems that it is designed to emphasize reading and reading. My daughter was happy when she saw that. I guess we will just have to teach grammar based on what we are reading.
My daughter did pretty well in our last review class, during which we went through all the character cards and lesson texts of the Book 3. She was able to read all the lessons without the help of Pinyin and only had a little bit of hiccups when she was unsure of pronunciation of certain characters. Of the 136 new characters in this book, she was able to recognize over 100 of them, without any help of context.
In the meantime, the original excitement when we started with this 2nd grade textbook is wearing off dramatically. We have since settled into a routine of how the class progresses and my daughter is getting tired and sick of it.
For the lesson text, I usually start by reading the text myself for her. Then she reads after me sentence-by-sentence for a couple of times, which gives me opportunities to correct or refine some of the pronunciation problems. We will then finish by hearing her reading it all by herself for once. She felt that this process is a bit too long and tedious. We probably need to change the routine as we start our 3rd grade to keep her fresh and more interested.
The other big complain she has is when we go through the grammar rules in the book. When I explain the lesson, I usually already touch on most of the grammar points. The systematic illustration of the grammar after the lesson text seems to be boring for her. We usually go by them quickly and I am not sure how much attention she was paying for them anyway.
Curiously, the 3rd grade textbook seems to have little to nothing in the grammar teaching. The textbook is made up almost entirely with the lesson text and reading materials alone. It seems that it is designed to emphasize reading and reading. My daughter was happy when she saw that. I guess we will just have to teach grammar based on what we are reading.
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