Preparing your Pre-Schooler- Bilingual Writing
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| Doggy Boy at a cupcake decoration birthday party |
Last month I posted about Oral Preparations for my eldest (Monkey Boy). This month my focus is more on my middle child(Doggy Boy).
My little boy is 4 and in Kindergarten One this year. He is very keen in academic learning but one thing he has been rather resistant to is writing. He is okay with learning new words in both English and Mandarin but when it comes to writing he will drag his feet and find all excuses just to get away from doing it.
In approximately 1.5 years time he will be entering elementary school like his elder brother and I will have to get him accustomed to writing and doing other written exercises. I know at this age boys have rather limited attention span and that they are rather more focus on fun and play then academics.
To get him sufficiently prepared for school we have started on some simple writing exercises at home during the week.
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| Practice books for Doggy Boy |
I chose these books for him as they seem manageable with him only needing to sit down for a maximum of 5-10 minutes to complete an exercise. We do a page a day and alternate between English and Chinese. As Chinese writing is different from writing in English I want him to get accustomed to writing the different strokes that make up a Chinese character. I got him a few Character tracing books so that he learns how to write the different characters using the proper sequences in strokes.
It is important for him to write the strokes properly as if a certain stroke is too long or too short or written in the wrong direction you may end up with a different character ( word) then you originally want to write. It is the same case as in English where by a poorly written “h” can be mistaken for a “n” if the line is not written long enough.
Here are some photos of his written work.
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| English Exercises which he has done |
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| Chinese Writing Exercises |
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| Chinese Writing book with Tracing |
Since starting Doggy Boy on these books his behaviour towards writing has improved a lot. He initially started out bawling and very reluctant to even write a single alphabet/character and could easily take up to an hour just to finish a page as he would sneak off to play or be doodling around when I took my eyes off him to attend to his siblings. Now he takes about 5 minutes and would consciously sit down to complete the page.
I will be moving on to getting him to do simple comprehension activities and starting him on basic essay writing once he completes this series of books.
July 22, 2011 @ 2:10 pm
Dominique,
Yikes! This is a tough one for me! What I try to do is have my children 10, 7 and 4 write letters to their family. But sometimes it ends up as me as the scribe and my children as the dictators! No pun intended 😉 Perhaps I just need to get past the initial weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and then it will go more smoothly? Great post, look forward to seeing it on the carnival! Bises xoxo
July 26, 2011 @ 3:42 pm
@Maria,
It takes some time for them to get used to writing so I’m starting the kids off in bits and pieces.. I personally would get the kids to copy out the essay/letter which I have helped them write themselves so that they will get used to writing and know how to structure and compose a letter.
August 8, 2011 @ 8:06 pm
Great post! This hits home for me. My son is going to start writing in Japanese next school year, but I want him to have a background in English before he goes. We do similar workbooks but he is so uninterested in actually following directions. Attention span of a gnat! Dominique, how did you get your son so interested?
August 8, 2011 @ 8:27 pm
@Medea,
He is interested in finishing the activities as he is allowed PC time or WII time or games with us only after he has completed his written work therefore it is some “motivation” for him to finish his work fast and accurately.
August 9, 2011 @ 12:08 am
Oh that’s a good idea! Usually study time is after work while I am making supper. The only thing after that is supper, which isn’t that exciting for a 4-year old! Maybe I should try switching the times around? Thanks!