Ella has made great progress in her reading - both in English and Chinese. She now regularly reads whole books from cover to cover in both languages. In the second video, the battery in my camera died before she finished reading her book. :biggrin:
She has also started reading Spanish and French beginning readers but it’s been slow going because we don’t speak either language at home. Also, I have not been as consistent in showing her LR files in Spanish and French. I really think LR made all the difference! Can’t wait for the Spanish and French curricula to come out!
May I know how long have Ella using this Little Reader program? Were the books that you showed in the video in Little Reader’s package?
Sorry, I got a lot of questions, feel so exciting to see your daughter can read so fluently. I hope my son can do it as well although I haven’t started to teach him anything. Don’t know where I supposed to start with.
I would just say that Ella is advanced amongst all the parents and children that use LR and post on this forum.
I would even go so far as to say that Ella’s progress is not extremely typical…Ella (and a small handful of other children) is definitely on the advanced end of the scale for her age.
I started teaching Ella to read English at 3 months old by showing her YBCR and Chinese at 10 months old by using Baby Learns Chinese. Then I stumbled across this wonderful forum when she was 14-15 months old and found out about Little Reader and she has been using it until now. She started reading phrases and sentences a couple of months after that and eventually started reading books before she turned 2. As for Chinese, I used LR to make my own Chinese files because the Chinese curriculum was not available yet when I started teaching her last year.
The books she is reading in the videos are not part of the LR package. The English book is a Level 3 book from Usborne First Reading graded readers. http://www.usborne.com/catalogue/usborne-reading-programme.aspx?area=YR And the Chinese book is a Level 4 book from the Wo Hui Du graded Chinese readers. http://www.studioij.com/E-EduChinese.htm The Wo Hui Du readers actually come in simplified chinese but I converted them to traditional chinese by printing out the traditional characters on sticker paper and sticking them onto the pages. I had been looking for a long time for graded readers in Traditional Chinese that follow the Doman method of showing the pictures and words on separate pages but have not found one to my liking so I decided to just modify the Wo Hui Du readers.
I am not sure how typical Ella’s progress is because we only have one child and, aside from her, I have zero experience with teaching kids to read. I think the key is starting early (around 3 months), not putting any pressure on the kid (i.e. not testing… as much as possible - I know it’s hard to resist! :laugh: ), and just having LOTS and LOTS of books and reading material available around the house. I myself LOVE to read and have slowly been collecting books over the years and building up a reading library for her. This is a list of some of her beloved books that I think helped her most in learning to read. I have not included books that we just read for pleasure.
The YBCR lift-a-flap books and sliding cards book (these books have been loved to bits!)
I Can Read! Level 2 books - Frog and Toad, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Little Bear, etc.
Scholastic Science Vocabulary Readers - I got tons of these cheap on eBay!
Science A-Z leveled science readers
For Chinese:
Baby Learns Chinese flashcards
Wo Hui Du graded readers
Reading Lads graded readers - I like these because each set of books has a different theme (science, morals and values, famous chinese historical figures, chinese history, etc.) but are still simple enough for my toddler to understand. The only thing I don’t like is they’re only available in simplified so I have to convert them also to traditional chinese.
As you can see, I am a big fan of graded readers since I believe in scaffolding and building on prior knowledge as the most effective way of learning. Whew! This turned out to be a really long post! Anyway, I hope this helps! Good luck!
I have a 2 years boy and just started teaching him to read. I’m a bit confuse, I speak to my boy with mandarin only but later in the school he will learn English eventually. Which language should I teach him to read at the moment? Is it good if I teach him English and Mandarin together in the same time using Little Reader ? I concern he will get confuse with the Eng. Any advise how to teach my boy for two languages ? thanks
I am in almost the same situation with my daughter. I have spoken only Mandarin to her since she was born (except when I am teaching her to read in English and teaching her math/science). Her dad speaks only Filipino to her and she learns English and Spanish in daycare. I don’t think it will confuse them to learn to read both Mandarin and English at the same time since the two languages are entirely different - English is alphabet-based and requires knowledge of phonics to read while Chinese is character-based and depends almost entirely on rote memorization of characters to read. We also use very different parts of our brain when learning English vs. Chinese. I wouldn’t worry too much about your son getting confused. If you are looking for an easy hassle-free way of teaching both languages at the same time, then I think Little Reader is your best bet. The curriculum for both English and Chinese are already built in and you only have to press play. If your son stays at home with you and you can show him the lessons throughout the day, then it would be better if you can break up the English and Chinese lessons into different sessions during the day. In our case, I work full time outside the home and only have a few minutes in the morning and a few hours at night to teach my daughter. So I usually end up showing her English, Chinese, and Spanish lessons in the morning in one sitting, and then English, Chinese, and French in the evening also all in one sitting. As far as I can tell, it is working out for her.
Hi Aangeles,
Thank you very much for your tips. Do you think if my son only learn to read English from LR without speak to anyone in English is ok for him? I haven’t put him to daycare because I’m staying at home mom. Probably will put him to the Daycare once a week next year to socialize with other kids. I really admire on you and your partner in guiding Ella to learn a lot of languages although both of you are working full time
