中文進度 Chinese proficiency progress

Magic Tree House #40

人生 中文進度 Chinese proficiency progress

Yeah, “Georgia” has gone through the 4th book (#40) in the fourth box of the Magic Tree House series, with a dozen book to each box.  I estimate that the number of characters in the fourth box (book #37-48) is about twice that of the books from the first box.  She finished reading book #40 within the 15-20 minutes that I previously predicted, or 18 minutes to be exact.   By my rough estimation after counting the number of characters on a couple of typical pages, that would be about 1,000 characters a minute.  If not for the fact that she scores 98% in her reading comprehension exercises consistently despite doing it fast, I would have said that she was faking it.  Though there are online English quizzes for these books, that may put undue stress on her.  The point is to encourage reading at this point, not to discourage them.  That’s what the reading comprehension exercises are for and she’s got that down pat.

I think she really can read short novels without zhuyin these days just fine.  Yesterday, she started studying the the first chapter of third-grade second-semester textbook from Taiwan.  After looking over the text once, she read it aloud decently well (say, 70%).  She simply may not have the patience to read novels yet.  I may need to remind her that her next trip to Orlando rests on reaching this next target, LOL.

 


  

Magic Tree House & The Selection

人生 中文進度 Chinese proficiency progress ,

Yeah, “Georgia” is done reading the first 24 Chinese-edition books of Magic Tree House!  She will now move onto book #37-48, which probably has twice the number of characters as the first few books.  I estimate that she can finish reading one book in 15-20 minutes, but we will see if her attention span holds.

As for “Charlotte”, we finally receive in mail the Chinese edition of The Heir, which is book #4 of the Selection Series by Kiera Cass!  It will be another good ~ 4 hours of Chinese reading time for her.  The Heir’s book movie trailer.  It looks like book #5, The Crown, will come out next May.  I expect the Chinese edition to hit the bookstore two months later.

At the mean time, I spotted a couple of catchy but simple songs by Malaysian singer Joyce Chu: 好想你 and 伸出圓手.  My girls should like it.   These would be another score for CLE!

Harry Potter

人生 Daily thoughts, 中文進度 Chinese proficiency progress

Finally I am able to get 9 year old “Georgia” to start reading more Harry Potter in English.  She is now working on the third book and read a chapter on Kindle every few days.  That’s not fast by any means but she will pick up more speed over the next year to two.  It’s a balancing act, to advance both Chinese and English reading at decent enough pace concurrently.  Georgia is able to do it decently well, since we have a solid CLE (Chinese language ecosystem) already set up, thanks to her elder sister, and a solid ELE from school plus my tutoring.  She finished reading the 21st book of Magic Tree House in Chinese in 8 minutes or so.  It’s ~ 100 pages but doesn’t seem to have many characters.  She has three more books to go before I had her skip the next dozen (book 25-36, which I did not buy) and move onto book 37, which is longer.  Hopefully, she will be one step closer to reading Chinese chapter books without zhuyin by the time she finishes reading Magic Tree House book #48.  Her sister “Charlotte” started reading chapter books without zhuyin at 10.5 years old; I hope “Georgia” get to do it at 10.

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Battle of the Books: catching up in English

人生 Daily thoughts, 中文進度 Chinese proficiency progress

It took “Charlotte” ~3 to 3.5 years of work (1.5 years of homeschooling and ~1.5 to 2 years of regular private school, from second half of 3rd grade till ~middle of six grade) to get her English competency back to native peer level (matched for age and intellect, I would say).   She just made the first of two cuts for Battle of the Books program at school.   She reads English novels fast.  She writes well too….I think.  Well, at least she loves to write and writes profusely.  And she did quite well in the language portion of one of those national standardized tests toward the end of last school year.

So, once again, that’s what worked for us: little emphasis in English early on, with focus on Chinese competency up till ~ 8-9, and then catching up in English afterwards.  By end of third grade, the goal is to reach end of second grade reading level in Taiwan or ~ second grade first semester level in mainland China (more advanced there).  Yeah, it’s no easy task.  It’s hard.  But so is spending 15-20 hours a week playing the piano or doing gymnastic.  But it is doable.

And if one of the parents in the family can’t comfortably read my writings here, it is highly unlikely that the said parents will be comfortable slacking off in their child’s English early on to make room for enough Chinese.  Maybe that’s one good reason that I am not in a hurry to translate all these into Chinese, yet.

Deal!

人生 中文進度 Chinese proficiency progress

“Georgia” is always thinking of ways to get more allowance $.

To encourage her to read more, she and I reached a deal: $1 for every 3 Magic Tree house book she reads.  So, if she wants, she can potentially earn $1 in about 40-45 minutes, which is all that it takes for her to read three books.  Don’t get me wrong.  She enjoys reading those books; she just doesn’t want to read them on her own free time.  She enjoys watching TV more, though I do put a limit on that.  They are rewatching “我的少女時代“ these last two days.  It’s great to watch Chinese movies with them.  We tell a lot of inside jokes from the movies and YouTube videos.

This is what she read today.  That’s the benefit of learning zhuyin for us. (I suppose pinyin would work but I don’t know if there are many intermediate level books like these with pinyin all the way through.) New characters do not pose a limit on the types of books they can read. As long as the content is at their level and they are familiar enough with the Chinese wording vocally, they can read it.  Reading competency and fluency takes……reading!

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重啟人 （Reboot）

人生 中文進度 Chinese proficiency progress ,

This week, Charlotte, who is 12, went back to read Reboot.  She read parts of this novel around July but it was probably still a little rough for her.  Now that she has breezed through 3 books of The Selection series plus its companion book and is waiting for the fourth book (The Heir) to arrive this Friday, she is rereading Reboot.  It does seem a little tougher than The Selection series.  Hopefully, it will be an easier read this time.

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Magic Tree House

人生 中文進度 Chinese proficiency progress

買了三套Magic Tree House 中文版給九歲的小女兒看，效果不錯，接受度高。一套12本，買了第一，二，四套。第四套字應該有第一套的兩倍以上。小女兒現在看到第二套第一本（其實她喜歡的，ㄧ本12-15分鐘就可以看完）。推～

I bought 3 sets of Magic Tree House for “Georgia”, set 1, 2, 4 (book 1-24 and 37-48). The last set probably has twice the number of characters as the first set; and hence more expensive. She’s done with the first set and is moving onto the second set. I am glad she doesn’t mind reading them; but really, if she likes the topic, she finishes one book in 12-15 minutes. We will see how she will respond to the last set, in terms of attention span.