Some parents think that the first thing to do when Online Chinese class for kids is to learn “Pinyin”.
Some parents think that they should wait for their children to learn the phonetic system of their first language before learning Pinyin.
Learning pinyin helps to make pronunciation more standard.
Pinyin can accurately help us obtain accurate listening information and express accurately in Chinese.
If you want to quickly improve your Chinese listening and reading ability, learn 4 tones, 23 initials, 24 finals, and 16 overall pronunciation recognition Festival is essential.
After learning pinyin, you can easily solve the learning problems of unfamiliar words. Even if there is no tool and no one to teach you how to pronounce it, you can spell it out.
This can also improve the efficiency of Chinese learning.
There are many parents in Hong Kong who prepare some Chinese picture books for their children to learn pinyin.
Although they contain pinyin, their children can’t recognize and read. Therefore, reading picture books basically depends on the guidance of their parents.
After nearly half a year of learning pinyin, most of the children can already complete some picture book reading independently, and will take the initiative to find picture books they are interested in.
Pinyin is an effective tool for literacy and learning Chinese, as well as an auxiliary tool for reading and writing.
Therefore, the answer to this question is obvious, “to learn Chinese, it is necessary to learn Pinyin”.
However, when it comes to “at what age is it better for children to learn pinyin? How to learn pinyin”, different people have different opinions.
As far as I am concerned, the age group suitable for children to learn pinyin is divided into the following three stages.
[Students aged 3-6]
Children at this stage have mastered their own first language and have entered the stage of forming sentences.
They can gradually realize that the words they express follow certain rules, and they can repeat the sentences they hear.
If you let your child enter pinyin learning in the preschool stage, you need to pay attention to two points.
One is to discover in time the impact of the child’s first language pronunciation on Chinese learning.
Most of the children in this age group have not fully acquired the first language phonetic system.
If they start to learn pinyin, the child’s phonetic discrimination ability is not yet mature. Undoubtedly, the two phonetics will interact and help each other. There are also implications.
The second is to pay attention to the fun. Pinyin learning should be in line with the child’s age, cognition and psychological characteristics.
By means of games or storytelling, let the children master the initials, finals, and tones in Pinyin, which can attract children’s attention. In other words, we have to teach children to “speak and play Pinyin”, instead of parents “to speak and learn Pinyin”.
In addition, through years of classroom observation, we found that it is easier for children at this stage to acquire phonetic accuracy and clarity close to their native language when learning pinyin.
[Students aged 6-12]
Students in this age group start to study in primary school. From this age stage alone, it is not difficult to see that it is the strongest learning ability of children, and it is also the most critical stage for the formation of children’s language ability.
When children enter elementary school, they begin to learn the first language systematically, and have a more complete and clear understanding of the phonetic system of the first language.
This is especially important for Online Chinese class for kids, because students usually learn Chinese at this stage.
In my own mind, I actively compare some first language sounds with Pinyin, so as to reduce the troubles my first language brings to Pinyin learning. This is the age group with the best pinyin learning efficiency.
This is also the stage that this article believes is most suitable for overseas Chinese children to learn pinyin.
I hope that parents will not let their children miss this golden period of pinyin learning. Online Chinese class for kids at this stage, attention should be paid to correcting the child’s pronunciation, especially the tones in pinyin, because children can already realize that the four tones in pinyin do not exist in their first language.
Difficult-to-pronounce pinyin may have inaccurate pronunciation and intonation. Therefore, when parents accompany their children to study, they should correct their children’s pronunciation and intonation in time.
[ Students aged after12]
Students at this stage begin to enter secondary school.
They have formed a complete first language phonetic system, and when learning pinyin, they will consciously and accurately compare the phonetic systems of the two languages.
In addition, most Chinese middle school students already have a considerable level of Chinese foundation.
Middle school is more like a period of language advancement. It is necessary to complete a certain number of texts and literary works. The intensive content makes reading more difficult. For children to master Pinyin
The level of reading is also a test. What if, the child cannot read the content of the text fluently, it will, definitely, hinder the student’s understanding of the text. Thus, slowing down the pace of the child’s Chinese improvement.
For overseas Chinese children, learning Chinese, learning pinyin meets the needs of students’ physical and mental development, and also meets the characteristics of students’ second or foreign language learning.
If your child is learning Pinyin, let us encourage him to persevere, overcome this difficulty, and lay a good foundation for the development of Chinese “listening, speaking, reading, and writing”.
If you are still hesitating about Online Chinese class for kids for your child, you might as well try our suggestions.