Hanyu Pinyin & 四五快读 (SWKD)

Last week, Sonshine's enrichment class began their first hanyu pinyin (chinese phonics). I have been hesistant to start him with it but looks like there is no escaping now especially when the teacher said he had some problem identifying the sounds.

 

Now i personally love Hanyu Pinyin (HYPY), it saved my life. If not for it, i wouldn't have gotten my A grade. It helped me to recognise words and look up the correct words in the dictionary with ease.

 

Yet, i was hesistant to have sonshine learn it so soon. Because i really didn't know how to explain to him what it was about & i much prefer him to read without the aid of HYPY.

 

Still, i began my very own first HYPY lesson with him.

 

 

Sonshine had to circle the correct HYPY as i randomly call them out. This small exercise was to get him practise his listening skills.

 

I wrote some words and some HYPY. He had to circle the correct HYPY of each word.

As i was teaching him, i realised while he could read the words some of his pronunciation were off (some words were read in 第一声). This means that he will have some problem getting the hypy right. This made me realised i have to brush up on his pronounciation. Prior to this, i always let it go and was contented that he could recognise the words.

 

 

He also learnt to write some new words 会，花，山 and he wrote a sentence (twice) with these new words.

 

Since there were no new words/passage to revised from his enrichment class, i made him start on 四五快读 book 3.

 

Here i am gonna talk more about 四五快读. The first 2 books are relatively easy, the words are also easy to explain. I used to isolate each of the new words and get sonshine to read the individual words first. When he was familiar with the new words, i then made him to read the accompanying passages as a follow up activity.

 

But as we progressed on, i felt it more difficult to teach sonshine from the book. I found the words became more abstract and hard to explain like 得,礼,着 etc. Also, the words became more uncommon like 驮 and are not something sonshine (& I) would have heard daily hence it was difficult for him to remember the new words. So i decided to ease off book 3 for a long time until now.

 

To help him learn faster, I now dive right into the passage and have sonshine to read aloud to me. Since he has learn basic HYPY, i decided to make use of it. I wrote the HYPY of the new words (that first appear on the page) on the book to aid him. I get him to read repeatedly over a few days. When he became more familiar with the new words, i isolate them and have him read to me, now without HYPY. So far this method works magically for him. Whoop!

 

My conclusion now is that HYPY is actually very useful in helping sonshine learn new words. I am no longer hesistant but actually glad that he has started on HYPY. Awesome! Now we can finally move on with book 3!