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Pay attention to the importance of Singaporean children’s Chinese eloquence

Recently, the Ministry of Education has issued an article to further promote the cultivation of Singaporean children’s Chinese eloquence and expression skills!

Nowadays, parents are increasingly paying attention to the cultivation of their children’s comprehensive qualities, whether it is their logical thinking training, language communication ability training, or aesthetic cultivation, covering all aspects.

The cultivation of this aspect is not only about cultivating children’s basic language communication skills, but now the Ministry of Education also attaches great importance to the cultivation of students’ oral expression skills.

The official letter mentioned that the Chinese language curriculum standards clearly define the training objectives and course content for students’ oral communication skills.

Singaporean children's Chinese eloquence

The “Chinese Language Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education (2011 Edition)” specifically points out the training objectives of oral communication: “to have the basic ability of daily oral communication, learn to listen, express, and communicate, and preliminarily learn to use oral language for civilized interpersonal and social communication.”

In addition, a “Oral Communication” section is set up in the objectives and content of each stage of compulsory education, clarifying the teaching objectives and content of each stage.

From this, it can be seen that the development of children’s language eloquence ability is no longer limited to “extracurricular interest classes”. It has been planned to be included in compulsory education Chinese textbooks.

“In addition to being able to write, you also need to be able to speak” has become a trend for future students to gradually develop.

In addition to the official instructions from the Ministry of Education, parents can also find that “language communication” has become an important element that can gradually affect their children’s “personality”, “learning ability”, and “thinking” in their daily lives.

The “academic bully” has become a stereotype of being silent and engrossed in reading. Nowadays, which child is not proficient in speaking, writing, and martial arts, and pen skills are no longer a single criterion for measuring a child’s excellence.

So how to take a quick step and help children gradually master language expression skills?

One important aspect of Singaporean children’s Chinese eloquence is the accumulation and application of vocabulary. Through active communication with children, teachers enable them to continuously accumulate vocabulary. The accumulation of vocabulary directly affects their oral expression ability and is an important factor reflecting their expression ability.

Education experts often say, “Language is the outer shell of thinking. A person who is capable of speaking is generally intelligent and quick thinking. The training of eloquence and thinking is mutually reinforcing. To make oneself smarter, one should train one’s oral expression skills more.

Eloquence and writing ability can be mutually transformed, and a person who is truly good at expressing themselves is a good writer by recording their speeches. One of the principles of composition training is that speaking of writing is the foundation of being able to write.

But some students are good at writing, and their articles are smooth and fluent, but when spoken with restraint, this requires training. Writing first and then speaking is also a way to practice eloquence. Writing an outline and clarifying ideas is generally a preparation for oral communication.

When practicing eloquence, read more books and news to increase your knowledge reserve. It has to be said that reading more literary works has a great impact on people’s thinking, and it not only affects children’s writing level, but also their language expression ability.

The level of language can determine others’ perception of your cultural and ideological level. You don’t have to read books like doing Chinese reading exercises, just read more. There are also various encyclopedia knowledge, current political news, historical events, and so on, which are purely to increase the “dry goods” that children can throw out when speaking!

Only in practice can true knowledge be revealed. Similarly, in addition to language learning in textbooks and classrooms, it is important to put it into action in real life in order to diversify and enhance children’s ability to apply their eloquence.

If we cannot showcase and train children’s learning outcomes through a platform that only speaks without practicing fake techniques, the final presentation effect will definitely not be as good as that of children with rich language practice experience.

How to find these practical opportunities? Generally speaking, there are many good practical platforms for practicing language structures on the market to hone children’s courage and language abilities.

For example, the annual “Radio and Television Cup” competition held by Radio and Television Education, as well as recitations and hosting competition activities of all sizes, can meet children’s requirements for stage practice.

And the upcoming Chongqing Children’s Spring Festival Gala, which is about to be rehearsed, is a professional and rare opportunity to showcase.

I believe that all parents have understood the important role of cultivating Singaporean children’s Chinese eloquence in their daily lives!

I hope that in the process of oral communication, children can use accurate, appropriate, vivid, clever, and effective oral expression strategies to achieve specific communication goals and achieve satisfactory communication results. This is the art and skill of oral expression!

Interested parents can contact me~

Creative Chinese Writing for Singaporean Children

Why do children still have “nothing to write” when they memorize model essays every day? This worrying problem is a major concern for both teachers and parents. In response, Singapore’s top teacher, Teacher Zhang, proposed creative Chinese writing for Singaporean children.

In order to fundamentally stimulate students’ inner drive for writing, it is advisable to try using the vivid and living “model text” – movies.

Writing Encounter Movies not only conforms to children’s internal growth patterns and closely aligns with their focus, but also more intuitively interprets the layout and writing techniques of “model essays”. The most important thing is that both teachers and parents can obtain the “key” to awaken children’s writing from it.

Due to children’s lack of life experience and limited access to direct materials; Moreover, they are not good at observation and have difficulty obtaining indirect materials, resulting in a shortage of materials and improper expression in current writing teaching.

Therefore, for children with monotonous daily life and insufficient social experience, capturing materials from movies with a wide range of themes to make up for the lack of life experience can be a twice the result with half the effort.

Movies open up children’s writing horizons – to understand knowledge in different fields, experience different life experiences, experience different emotional experiences, and freely write about the situation, feelings, and thoughts.

Children in primary school mainly learn through their senses, using their mouth, ears, eyes, nose, and body to feel, recognize, and discover the world.

And movies can intuitively simulate a perceptible world. Excellent film works often have a huge impact on people’s spiritual world, and can even affect a generation.

Movies enter childhood, allowing children to “digest and absorb” these classics into their own spiritual bloodline in the fantasy world of light and shadow. At the same time, children’s spiritual growth can be nurtured through writing.

A child who has been immersed in excellent movies for a long time will not have poor writing skills.

If a movie wants to attract attention and love from others, it is bound to be an innovative model in certain aspects. For example, unexpected and reasonable endings, creative compositions, harmonious and wonderful soundtracks.

These new ideas are subtly passed down to children, allowing them to explore unique expressions and forge innovative ways of thinking.

Looking at creative Chinese writing for Singaporean children, we still aim to pursue “high intention, precise selection of materials, clever structure, and beautiful language” as our writing goals, emphasizing the production and expression skills of articles, but neglecting the cultivation of communication skills in writing and students’ language communication abilities.

By comparison, writing teaching in many other countries is not only aimed at enabling students to master various writing skills and forms, but also at educating students to recognize the communicative value and function of writing.

The concept of creative writing is to closely connect writing and life, so that every writer deeply feels that writing cannot do without life, and writing also enriches our lives.
How to improve children’s writing ability?

Interest is the best teacher, and the first step is to cultivate children’s interest in writing, so that they can work with half the effort.

Often telling children meaningful fairy tales or simple and easy to understand stories allows them to unconsciously be influenced by culture, thereby increasing their cultural temperament.

Encourage children to develop a good habit of reading books, persisting in reading for a while every day without demanding too much. When tired of reading, take a break and not be too demanding.

Developing the habit of keeping a diary for children can improve their writing skills to a certain extent and accumulate a lot of life materials for writing.

Give more positive and objective evaluations of what children write, improve their self-confidence, and stimulate their writing enthusiasm.

Taking creative Chinese writing for Singaporean children, as an example, the development of creative writing is not limited to the curriculum of higher education institutions.

Through the joint efforts of primary and secondary education, general education, professional teaching, and social training, its development has formed a relatively mature system and is more comprehensive. The sinicization of creative writing is being solidly promoted.

Singaporean children’s Chinese oral expression ability

The ability of Singaporean children’s Chinese oral expression ability is an aspect that parents should focus on cultivating. Having good language expression skills can benefit children for a lifetime. Although language plays a significant role in interpersonal relationships, not everyone possesses good language expression skills.

Language is a tool that can be proficiently used through acquired training. Learning to speak and speak is one of the key skills for children’s future career success. The training of language expression ability can be advanced to the early childhood education period and started in family education, rather than relying solely on written teaching from teachers.

Language education includes four aspects: listening, expression, early reading, and pre writing preparation.

It creates a free and relaxed language communication environment for young children, develops their language understanding and expression abilities, cultivates their interest in reading and writing, and helps them become familiar with, understand, and learn Mandarin.

Singaporean children's Chinese oral expression ability

Early childhood is the optimal period for children’s oral language development. Language education not only plays an important role in children’s lifelong oral expression ability, but also has a positive impact on their cognitive, social, and emotional development.

Parents can help their children improve their expression skills in the following ways:
Try to find topics that your child is interested in to discuss with them, and do not deviate from their cognitive range so that they can “speak” out.

It is rumored that there was once a working elementary school teacher who, during his fifth grade essay class, asked his classmates to write the topic ‘If I were the Manager’, but none of the children’s writings were satisfactory.

Firstly, children have no emotional understanding of the role of “manager”, which is like asking someone who has not seen a horse to draw a horse.

From this, it can be seen that in order for children to learn oral expression, it is necessary to stimulate their enthusiasm, make them feel that they have something to say, and fully activate their thinking, because language always follows the movement of thinking.

This website often reports on which left behind children have autism, largely due to the lack of communication with their parents. Many parents do not know that the foundation of their children’s language learning is imitation, which is the so-called “learning by example”.

Therefore, parents should first talk to their children more and familiarize them with the language in order to maintain a high level of sensitivity to language. This is the most basic step in exercising children’s oral expression ability. Everyone has heard a lot about the story of the wolf child, and it is also true that the environment affects a person’s growth.

The ability of Singaporean children’s Chinese oral expression ability is developed through practice. To cultivate children’s oral skills, it is necessary to encourage them to speak and practice more.

The term ‘practice more’ here mainly refers to giving children more opportunities to tell their own experiences, including retelling stories they have heard, telling book content, creating stories, and talking to others in daily life.

Children should be encouraged to creatively organize language based on their own understanding and mastery of vocabulary and grammar. The current practice of parent-child reading in many kindergartens is also based on this starting point. We always tell stories to our children, and we should also listen to them reading stories to us.

This is very important. When a child comes up with an understanding of something, regardless of whether the child’s ideas are correct or not, parents should not rush to judge and correct the outcome.

Being too hasty can easily dampen a child’s motivation, as it is the child expressing their own will. It is important for them to “speak up” and not care if they are “right” or not. Afterwards, find appropriate opportunities to guide and correct.

The improvement of Singaporean children’s Chinese oral expression ability is a cumulative result.

Singaporean Children’s Playful Chinese Teaching

Language learning is dull and uninteresting, especially for children in their growth and development stages. This requires adding fresh and active elements to language learning to attract children’s attention. Singaporean children’s playful Chinese teaching can increase their interest in learning.

In the classroom, teachers are planners of communication training, directors of “Chinese language programs”, and organizers of game activities.

Real emotional communication between teachers and students can promote the formation and development of classroom communication training, allowing students to engage in enjoyable and informative Chinese language training in a natural and comfortable language environment.

The importance of Chinese tutoring for Singapore.In this Chinese language atmosphere, students will be very willing to respond to the questions raised by the teacher, which is conducive to the development of teaching activities.

In most classes, students’ Chinese proficiency is not very neat, and there are always some students in the class whose Chinese proficiency is higher than others. These people are the “little teachers” and “little translators” in the class, and they are good helpers for the teacher. When they help others, their Chinese proficiency is also improved.

Teachers should play these roles by grouping them into groups and selecting one student from each group to serve as the ‘little teacher’ to assist slightly weaker students. This can not only achieve the goal of promoting learning, but also alleviate the tension and shyness of slightly weaker students by practicing on a small scale, and each has its own benefits.

A formal teaching environment may make students feel nervous or constrained, especially for children from English speaking countries. They are relatively free to talk, walk, or eat freely in their own classrooms, but these are not allowed in China.

We can try to discuss daily topics such as weather and dates before class, creating a relaxed chat style teaching atmosphere. This can not only reduce the pressure brought by the formal classroom atmosphere, but also prevent students from getting distracted.

During the teaching process, it can help students maintain a good overall level of excitement.

Pictures and cards are both good tools for students to recognize characters. In the early stage of Singaporean children’s playful Chinese teaching, teachers can apply life pictures, animal pictures, plant pictures, etc. to classroom teaching. Colors and pictures can help students more effectively remember the Chinese characters next to the pictures. In the next stage, the format of card games can be changed.

I once tried a game called “Sharp eyes”, which divided students into two groups: A and B. The cards with new words were left in front of the students for one to two seconds, allowing them to quickly recognize the new words on the cards through instant memory. The fast group received a star as a reward, achieving good results. This method is also suitable for learning and training new sentence patterns.

Children often show a strong interest in role-playing in the classroom. Performing role plays using new words and sentence structures learned in the text to recreate certain scenes in the text or life is beneficial for cultivating children’s language communication skills.

For example, when learning the content of “payment”, I designed a scene of shopping in a store, where students were asked to use the newly learned words in this lesson to recreate the characters. The effect was surprisingly good.

The students not only used the words “change” and “package” learned in the text, but also used many words they had heard in daily life.

The repeated practice in Singaporean children’s playful Chinese teaching is the main way for children to learn and master a language. Practicing in games not only avoids students’ boredom, but also stimulates their interests. Games are generally divided into the following categories:

Card class
You can read some new word cards one by one for students to recognize, and after one or two rounds, draw a card from them and buckle it on the table for the third round of recognition, allowing students to quickly reflect on what word the missing card is. This game tests students’ memory ability and can also effectively concentrate their attention.

Action class
When playing the game of ‘antonymous actions’, students perform the opposite actions according to the instructions given by the teacher. When the teacher says’ big ‘, the students draw a smaller circle with their hands. When the teacher says’ cry’, the students must make a smile.

In the game of “matching numbers and taking seats”, the teacher prepares two sets of identical cards with words or phrases written on them, and sends one set to the students. The students hold their own cards and stand together. The teacher arranges the other set of cards in a disordered order, and the students find their rightful position according to the arranged order.

Performance category
One is to perform dialogues or content in the text to help students understand the content, and the other is to train students in verbal communication. These games can exercise students’ communication skills.

For example, simulating real-life scenarios such as shopping, visiting hospitals for medical treatment, and conducting interviews with journalists, these practice students’ language communication skills.

During the game, students can not only gain the satisfaction of “growth”, but also receive the benefits of improving their language organization, expression, and listening and speaking abilities.

Memory class
It can train students’ instantaneous memory ability and help transform short-term memory into long-term memory. Teachers can write multiple words on the blackboard and ask everyone to remember them in a short period of time.

Students are divided into two groups, each group selects a team member. The first group member faces everyone with their back to the blackboard, while the second group member erases one of the words.

The first group member turns to look at the blackboard, says the erased word, and makes a sentence using that word. The teacher will fill in the erased words and play the next round of the game.

The Current Situation and Suggestions of Chinese Developmental Language Disorders in Young Children

This article will elaborate on current situation and suggestions of Chinese developmental language disorders in young children.

According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2021, the current population of children aged 0-14 in China exceeds 250 million. The development of language ability is a lifelong task for humans, and the critical period for this ability development is in childhood.

China started relatively late in the research field of children’s language development, especially their listening and speaking abilities, and the scientific research efforts are correspondingly insufficient.

Chinese developmental language disorders in young children

In the age range of 0-8 years old, there are multiple milestone nodes, marking a new stage in children’s language ability. Children’s language ability mainly involves the following aspects: phonetics, grammar, and pragmatics.

The first milestone is when children say their first meaningful word. This milestone usually occurs around 12 months after the child is born. In the pre language stage prior to this, the pragmatic abilities of several months old infants emerged, demonstrating the ability to interact with parents or primary caregivers and respond to certain commands.

At around 6 months, parents can observe the sprouting of a child’s speech ability, and at this point, the baby begins to babble and make sounds similar to speech, ready to truly speak the first word.

The second milestone roughly occurs between the ages of 1 and a half to 2, when the child has mastered approximately 50-100 vocabulary words and learned to put the two words together, such as “Mom hugging”.

At this stage, children express richer and more diverse meanings through language, and are able to convey communicative intentions such as questions, protests, and requests.
Around the age of 3, children’s vocabulary development enters an “explosive period”, with their expressive vocabulary increasing from hundreds to thousands. Around the age of 5, Chinese speaking children can speak approximately 2000-2500 words.

At the age of 3-5, children are able to master the vast majority of Chinese initials, vowels, and tones, with continuous improvement in speech clarity. At the same time, their grammar abilities are rapidly developing. They speak longer sentences with more complete and complex syntactic structures.

Children aged 4-5 are able to utter complete sentences containing 7-10 words, produce quantitative structures, master sentence structures such as negative, passive, interrogative, and relative clauses, and frequently use “then” to connect sentences.

Children’s narrative ability usually begins to develop at this stage, demonstrating the ability to narrate their experiences in chronological order, telling and retelling simple stories.

Developmental language disorder refers to a significant obstacle in language understanding and expression, with some children experiencing only one aspect of language understanding or expression, while others experiencing both. Children may have obstacles in syntax, vocabulary, semantics, and pragmatics.

The specific manifestations vary from person to person, and common manifestations include small vocabulary, short average sentence length, inability to understand instructions given by adults, etc.

Some studies have shown that compared to normal children, Chinese developmental language disorders in young children in early childhood have a higher unemployment rate during their growth.

The above scientific research results indicate that delayed language development in children should be given early attention.

In terms of talent cultivation, the “14th Five Year Plan” emphasizes the importance of cultivating a special education teacher team and proposes to “strengthen the construction of special education teacher teams”.

In addition to increasing efforts to cultivate full-time teachers, the action plan also requires “organizing and conducting training for all principals and teachers of special education schools and regular schools, and incorporating integrated education into the compulsory content of continuing education for regular school teachers”.

On this basis, we suggest that in the next stage of the plan, the important position of language ability development should be further highlighted: firstly, in terms of talent cultivation, the professional fields of special education teachers should be refined, and professional literacy should be improved.

Courses such as “Linguistics” and “Language Intervention” should be included in the training curriculum of special education teachers.

Secondly, in terms of school curriculum, promote the establishment of specialized language proficiency enhancement courses in special education schools and regular schools.

Thirdly, it is recommended that relevant departments take the lead in promoting cooperation between university researchers conducting research on language barriers and interventions, as well as special education schools, classrooms, and frontline teachers.

By combining theory with practice, we can improve the quality of language intervention courses while continuously improving the professional level of special education.

The developmental language barrier of Chinese developmental language disorders in young children deserves our high attention. At present, China has begun to promote the establishment of job standards for “rehabilitation therapists”.

On this basis, we suggest that: firstly, the government actively promotes the standardization of professional standards for rehabilitation practitioners and advocates for professional refinement.

Secondly, policies should be introduced to develop language and speech therapy majors, referring to mature training processes and plans (such as undergraduate and master’s education at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University), and improving professional talent training mechanisms.

Finally, at the policy level, supporting the talent introduction of speech and language therapists can not only solve the current “urgent need” for professional practitioners, but also provide assistance for the subsequent talent cultivation.

Does learning Chinese treat children with depression?

In recent years, the incidence of depression has gradually decreased at a younger age. According to statistics, about 1% to 2% of children and 4% to 7% of adolescents are troubled by depression to varying degrees, and more than half of the first depressive episodes occur during adolescence. According to survey statistics, the possibility of learning Chinese to treat depression in children has greatly increased.

Learning Chinese to treat depression in children

Children and adolescence are critical periods of life growth and development. At this stage, parents are particularly cautious about their children’s use of medication, especially antipsychotic drugs, which has led to widespread use of psychological therapy to address the psychological and behavioral problems of adolescents.

Cognitive behavioral therapy
Children and adolescents with depression generally have problems such as negative cognition, unreasonable beliefs, low self-esteem, inferiority complex, aversion to learning, and negative cognition. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can effectively improve these aspects and achieve good intervention effects.

The main principle of CBT is that cognition serves as a mediator between emotional and behavioral responses. By using treatment strategies such as cognitive reconstruction, improving coping styles, behavioral activation, and social skill training to change inappropriate cognitive styles, emotional and behavioral disorders can be correspondingly improved.

Interpersonal psychotherapy
The theory of interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) assumes that the occurrence and development of various emotional disorders, including depression, are influenced by interpersonal relationships.

By improving the ability and skills to interact with others, handling and resolving interpersonal relationships and crises, it can improve the social function of visitors and alleviate various emotional symptoms.

Interpersonal relationship disorders are common problems in the growth process of children and adolescents, especially those with depression, such as separation from parents, pressure to develop intimate relationships with peers, beginning to experience the loss of family and friends, and interpersonal role conflicts.

Family therapy
Family psychotherapy is a psychotherapy method that involves at least two or more family members participating together, with the aim of restoring healthy family social functions.

Family therapy focuses on the interactive relationships between family members, without paying attention to the psychological structure and state analysis of individual family members; Using a systematic approach to explain the behavior and problems of individual members; To change an individual’s pathological behavior, it is necessary to establish a change in the overall interaction mode of the family.

Family therapy that focuses on children and adolescents’ issues mainly focuses on improving family relationships and alleviating family conflicts; Enhance family understanding of children’s emotional and behavioral issues; Promote effective communication between parents and children; Transforming the parenting style of parents towards their children.

Language is a tool for human communication and a weapon for thinking. Learning Chinese to treat depression in children is also very effectiviy. Individuals rely on language to receive education and grow; Individuals use language to exchange ideas and understand each other. The importance of language education is mainly reflected in several aspects:

Human individuals must understand and communicate with each other through language
Good language communication skills will shorten the distance between individuals and other members of society. When a child is trained to use language accurately to communicate with their peers, parents, teachers, or others, they will be more easily accepted and have good social adaptability.

Language lays the foundation for intellectual development
It is also the foundation for learning other knowledge. The development of early language ability in young children is an important indicator of their intellectual development.

Language has a high degree of generality, and language education can exercise children’s cognitive abilities and help improve their learning abilities. When young children have a certain level of language ability, they can smoothly enter other fields of learning and achieve good learning outcomes.

Language is an essential element in the development of creativity
Early childhood language education helps to improve thinking and imagination abilities, and the development of thinking can promote the development of children’s logical thinking and language expression abilities.

The development of children’s thinking and language abilities is synchronous, and the process of children mastering language is also the process of developing abstract thinking abilities. When adults provide language education to young children, it can promote the development of their thinking activities towards multi-directionality, uniqueness, and adaptability.

Language is an essential factor in improving one’s personality
Through early language education, young children can learn how to receive information from others and express their intentions correctly. This good communication ability helps to develop interpersonal relationships and establish self-confidence.

By allowing young children to operate well-designed language learning aids, they can also cultivate their interest in learning, improve their initiative in learning, and increase their focus and continuity in learning.

These good learning habits have a significant impact on the development of learning Chinese to treat depression in children. It is very limited. No matter what game my baby and I play, I will observe their reduced attention.

Babies often interrupt the focus of their eyes and divert their attention. I will also do the same action to give him a few minutes to slow down, and then we will start practicing from scratch.

Strengthening the development of Mandarin among Singaporean school-age children

With the continuous development of society, strengthening the development of Mandarin among Singaporean school-age children is a necessary path. Language is a cognitive system that endows sound, text, gestures, and other symbolic meanings.

In the overall system of language, it also includes oral language for listening and speaking, written language for reading and writing, as well as branch systems such as body language and sign language.

Children’s written language ability refers to their ability to read and write. Parents often overlook that young children have already gained a lot of knowledge and skills in reading and writing from their living environment before receiving formal literacy education.

strengthening the development of Mandarin among Singaporean school-age children

If parents hope to improve their children’s reading and writing abilities in a targeted manner, they first need to understand the general process of strengthening the development of Mandarin among Singaporean school-age children. In the “Reading and Writing Series”, we will take you to understand the development milestones of children’s reading and writing, as well as some practical skills to promote children’s reading and writing abilities.

Monument to the Development of Children’s Reading Ability:

3-4 years old
Be able to recognize familiar signs and words, such as restaurant signs, signs and names on food packaging, and place names on street signs.

Be able to say some words and phrases from a story or book.

Be able to recognize and occasionally say rhyming short sentences (such as little swallows, wearing floral clothes, coming here every spring), and words with the same initial consonants (such as kites and airplanes)

4-5 years old
When reading picture books together, it is possible to distinguish whether the parents are reading the text on the book or talking about the pictures in the book.

Pretend to read and tell stories based on memory, and be able to recognize some common Chinese characters.

Understand that the words on the item are related to it and that each word has a corresponding pronunciation.

5-6 years old
When reading, they will point out and say the Chinese characters, letters, or numbers they know. And began to recognize some uncommon words.

When children can understand the content of picture book stories through two information channels: pictures and text, their reading ability gradually develops from learning to reading to acquiring information through reading.

Discuss topics that interest children: Parents need to always remind themselves that children are not passive listeners in reading, but active participants. The purpose of parent-child reading is to cultivate children’s reading interest and develop reading habits.

So, to continuously promote children to become the leaders of reading, it is necessary to take the children’s interests as the starting point. The role of parents in parent-child reading is to guide, inspire, assist, rather than lead. Only when children are interested in topics can they have more thinking and willingness to express themselves.

Pay attention to the logical structure and language expression of children’s communication from the perspective of their language development. Parents should encourage their children to express their thoughts and viewpoints, regardless of whether they are right or wrong, and encourage them to dare to express and actively think.

During the child’s expression process, it is possible to observe whether the logical structure of their expression is clear.

Of course, the logical thinking of children only begins to develop after the age of 7, but this does not mean that before the age of 7, their speech is all topsy-turvy, allowing children to recall stories, tell stories in their own words, and use the order of pictures, characters, and plot development to promote children’s logical expression, which helps children understand the content of picture book stories, the development of its logical thinking is also tempered in this process.

Parents can also observe whether their children’s spoken language is rich from their expression. If their language is too simple, parents should not take the place of arranged help, but should provide supportive assistance, inspire and guide children to express themselves in more complete and coherent sentences.

From the perspective of children’s independent reading ability development, pay attention to whether children consciously use basic reading strategies in reading. We have already introduced four basic reading strategies that play an important role in understanding content.

These reading strategies are not meant to be used by children, but rather to be applied by parents in reading. At the same time, we guide children to feel and experience these reading strategies while reading. As children accumulate reading experience, they gradually internalize them as part of their reading abilities.

Parents observe their level of understanding of the story, the logic of their language expression, the richness of their oral accumulation, and the creativity and depth of their expressed content when they express themselves.

In the development of strengthening the development of Mandarin among Singaporean school-age children, we also encourage them to express themselves in ways that are not limited to language expression.

They can also engage in many extended activities through picture books, such as props, handicrafts, graffiti, performances, dramas, and other forms of expression. These expressions are not only full of fun, but also rich in form, integrating imagination, creativity, understanding, and expression, playing an important role in children’s understanding of stories and life.

The development of children’s reading ability has its inherent laws, requiring parents to grasp the critical period of children’s learning basic reading ability and know what support parents can provide in parent-child reading? What kind of environment should we create?

What guidance will be provided? Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of one’s own children in reading development, and providing targeted guidance and assistance, can help children become truly independent readers.

Basic Chinese Reading and Writing Strategies for Singaporean Children

Consciously cultivate basic Chinese reading and writing strategies for Singaporean children. Pre school children are still only beginners, and even if they have learned some words and are able to read independently, their understanding of the reading content is still very limited.

To become a fluent reader, parents also need to consciously help children develop basic reading strategies, in order to help children understand the reading content more comprehensively and deeply. There are four basic reading strategies: reflection strategy, expectation strategy, questioning strategy, and hypothesis strategy.

Reflection strategy:
It refers to children’s various reflections on the characters, plot, and other aspects of the story told in the picture book during the process of listening to the story or reading the picture book.

This reflection may be a manifestation of their own imagination or a reflection combined with their own life experiences. Regardless of the form, it will be beneficial for children to understand the reading content.

Expected strategy:
It refers to the ability of children, after accumulating a considerable amount of reading experience, to see or hear similar stories and speculate about the plot development and future behavior of characters.

This predictive ability can help children quickly understand the reading content and enhance their interest in reading in the future. With expectations, one wants to continue reading to verify whether their expectations are correct. At this point, expectations become a driving force and guide for continued reading, allowing children to engage in deeper reading comprehension.

Questioning strategy:
It refers to children’s questioning of the character setting, plot development, and story ending in picture books during reading comprehension. Why is this so? These doubts are related to the accumulation of children’s early reading experience, as well as their thinking about stories.

Queries help children find the reasons for events to occur and develop while reading, and are linked to their own reading or life experiences. They make children want to further explore and verify their doubts, and find answers.

Assumption strategy:
It refers to asking children to assume, after listening to a story or reading a picture book, that if they were in a different scene, the characters would behave differently, and if they were a certain character, what direction the story would develop and what different endings it would have.

Assuming that the strategy is an open-ended way of thinking, with no standard answers but various possibilities hidden. Children need to unleash their imagination and integrate, compare, and create their own life and reading experiences.

These four basic reading strategies can all be used in parent-child reading, where parents consciously use collaborative and interactive reading methods to help their children learn and apply them.

The use of different reading strategies can improve the efficiency and quality of children’s information acquisition through reading, and the use of basic reading strategies can also determine the level of children’s reading ability and how far they are from becoming mature independent readers.

The reading guidance ability of parents plays an external promoting role in the development of basic Chinese reading and writing strategies for Singaporean children.

To cultivate children as autonomous readers, it is also necessary to develop their internal strength. This cannot be achieved without the support of parents who have the ability to assist, and this assistance and support can be obtained from the following:

Creating a supportive reading environment for children=creating a physical environment+creating a psychological environment

Parents create their own comfortable reading corners for their children, allowing them to easily access picture books that they can read and enjoy at home. There are also plenty of picture books at home for children to choose from, which are all physical environments that parents can create for their children to stimulate their interest in reading.

To create psychological comfort and pleasure for children in reading, it is also necessary to create a psychological environment.

Reading with parents and children, enjoying the intimate time of snuggling together while reading, experiencing various fun of role-playing and game interaction in reading, feeling the warmth of parents’ love and the nourishment of language, all of which provide a safe and comfortable psychological environment for children’s reading.

The key word for creating a psychological environment is companionship: immersing oneself in the beautiful time of reading with children together requires parents to pay attention to their children’s emotional state and reading feedback during parent-child reading, adjust their reading interaction methods in a timely manner.

Engaging in discussions and exchanges with children during the reading process, encouraging and supporting children to express their opinions and ideas, and making children the leader in reading, Only in this way can children develop reading habits and improve their reading abilities.

Pay attention to the child’s state and ability development during reading, engage in dialogue and discussion.

To make children fall in love with reading, parents need to constantly monitor their children’s reactions during parent-child reading. Children’s level of understanding of the story can be judged by their expressions, body movements, etc.

Whether they are interested in this picture book story, and whether they are interested in reading at this time. If they are not interested at this time, do not force them to continue reading. This can easily lead to a sense of boredom in reading, and it is important to always connect reading with a sense of happiness.

Parents not only need to pay attention to their children’s reading status, but also need to pay attention to whether their children are willing to obtain key information in pictures by reading text.

Even if preschool children pay little attention to text in their reading, parents always tend to use pictures to communicate with their children. However, parents still need to realize that picture books are composed of both pictures and text. Picture books are not just a simple combination of pictures and text, but rather promote and integrate each other to tell a story.

Sometimes pictures and words describe two different things, and sometimes pictures and words complement each other in describing the same thing. Regardless of the way, the role of words cannot be ignored.

So when telling a story to a child, one cannot only interpret the picture and ignore the text, nor can one directly read the text and ignore the content that is not described in the text displayed in the picture.

To help cultivate basic Chinese reading and writing strategies for Singaporean children, it is necessary to enable them to grasp the key information in picture books during reading.

This is the information that can best help children understand the entire story content. In terms of understanding the meaning of the story, words often play a spiritual role, containing more crucial information in picture books.

Therefore, when parent-child reading, parents should consciously guide children to pay attention to the connection between pictures and words.

Training of Chinese Reading Ability for Singaporean Children

Chinese reading ability for Singaporean children is not innate, but only by becoming independent readers can children truly possess basic reading abilities.

The formation of this ability largely depends on the degree to which parents attach importance to children’s reading and their ability to accompany and guide children in reading.

Brain development:

The development of all brain related functions, including visual, auditory, emotional control, language, social skills, numbers, and symbols, is maintained at its highest developmental speed before the age of 5.

The formation of habits (green line), emotional control (purple line), language (yellow line), hearing (dark blue), visual (white line), and related development of symbols (red line) are all fastest developed around the age of one year.

Numbers (black) and social skills (blue line) rapidly develop from one year old to around 3 years old, and thereafter maintain a high development rate even at the ages of 6 and 7.
It can also be seen that early education and positive interaction for babies are better!

Human reading ability is formed between the ages of 3 and 8. Before the age of 8, parent-child reading can help children accumulate reading experience, narrative experience, life experience, and acquire reading ability learning.

After children have acquired basic reading abilities, after the age of 8, they can further develop methods and skills for obtaining information through these basic reading abilities, that is, the ability to obtain information through reading. This ability is the foundation for people to learn various knowledge.

Therefore, parents need to grasp the critical period for children before the age of 8 to learn basic reading skills, and can guide the development of children’s reading and learning abilities from four aspects.

At the age of 3, people basically acquire their mother tongue, and at this time, their mother tongue is basically only spoken. They can communicate with adults in various aspects of daily life, but acquiring spoken language does not mean that children’s spoken language is rich enough.

Parents will find that in the same scene, different children have different descriptions and expression abilities towards things, and this difference in expression level can reflect the richness of children’s oral language.

The richness of spoken language determines whether children can match the spoken words they hear when they see written text, or whether they can express what is said in written language after hearing it. This is the basic ability for children to learn reading.

The Chinese reading ability for Singaporean children is established through interest and knowledge. In daily life, children can see various written and pictorial symbols, and naturally acquire a lot of knowledge about written language symbols. The most important way to obtain written language symbols is actually through early reading.

Picture books integrate pictures and text to describe a story, a life scene, and connect pictures and text. In early childhood reading, parents help children deepen their understanding of the written language meaning in picture books through interactive parent-child reading.

At the same time, they establish a love for reading, which is necessary preparation for becoming a good reader in the future.

When children begin to consciously pay attention to words, they will realize that symbols and words have unique characteristics in their writing forms. They know that Chinese characters are composed of components, that words have the function of recording and expressing, and that there is a certain relationship between pictures and words.

This awareness and cognition is a manifestation of children’s sensitivity to words, and is the foundation for children to distinguish and understand Chinese characters.

The cultivation and improvement of Chinese reading ability for Singaporean children can help them develop interest in learning reading and enter the stage of learning written language earlier.

Before paying attention to text, children find that pictures convey more information than words, and after entering written language reading, they will find that language and words can describe more content that the picture cannot reflect. This is a significant shift towards becoming an autonomous reader.

Precautions for beginners of Chinese Pinyin in Singapore

Pinyin is now the first hurdle that both children and adults must face in the learning of beginners of Chinese pinyin in Singapore. Here are some key points on how to get started with children learning Pinyin.

How long does it take for children to learn Pinyin?

There are currently several mainstream approaches to how long it takes children to get started: 1. One week; 2. One month; 3. One semester.

Firstly, a one week introduction is feasible, but it is also limited to basic introductions. According to the current mainstream teaching, children can learn up to six simple final and tones, plus some simple initials, within a week.

If it weren’t for hoping that children’s Chinese learning would only stay at the basic level, such an “entry-level” approach would obviously not be enough.

What about that month? If the rhythm is relatively fast, it should be able to complete most of the vowels, but children cannot fully grasp these pinyin in such a short period of time.

Moreover, Pinyin is not independent of other studies of Chinese. How do children get started learning Pinyin? How long will it take? There is only one answer, which is that it will take nearly a semester to truly get started with Pinyin.

In fact, it takes children in China so long to master Pinyin in primary school. However, this does not mean that learning Pinyin alone requires such a long time. We will analyze this in detail in the following text.

Can children only learn Pinyin? Some parents want to know if their children can only learn Pinyin. The answer is no.

Pinyin in Chinese is like phonetic symbols in English, playing a role in assisting pronunciation and correction. Meanwhile, Pinyin cannot replace the use of Chinese.
Some children studying Chinese in China may feel lazy after learning Pinyin. They will use pinyin to replace the writing of unfamiliar or cumbersome characters.

Needless to say, this naturally leads them to lag behind other children in learning Chinese characters. Moreover, when reading, one only looks at pinyin and becomes illiterate when receiving articles without pinyin.

For some adults, their demands are limited to typing. Just learning Pinyin may be enough, and you don’t even have to worry about tone. For children who hope to learn Chinese well, this is obviously not enough. How do children get started learning Pinyin? Obviously, we cannot just learn Pinyin.

Can children learn Chinese without learning Pinyin?

Is it necessary for beginners of Chinese pinyin in Singapore when learning pinyin? If there were teachers in previous private schools who taught reading and correcting pronunciation, even without the concept of pinyin, it would not affect children’s learning of Chinese pronunciation.

The mainstream teaching nowadays generally prioritizes pinyin teaching. Some schools have also improved their teaching processes by not teaching Pinyin in the first month, but allowing children to recognize and read some simple Chinese characters, and gradually using the pronunciation of these characters to bring out Pinyin.

Of course, with a large input of Chinese, one may still be able to learn Chinese well without learning Pinyin. The Cambodian boy who became popular online a few years ago is an example.

This popular boy on the internet has mastered multiple languages at a young age, but his job is only to sell souvenirs to foreign tourists. Under the immersion of multiple languages, he acquired nine languages, including Chinese.

Such examples have also appeared in other languages. Legend has it that Liang Qichao learned Japanese in just one night. Some people may think that Japanese and Chinese have much in common. This statement is true, but it also provides the feasibility of learning a language without studying phonetics.

How do children get started learning Pinyin? The order and method are important.
To learn Pinyin, first learn six simple final. Among them, in terms of pronunciation from a to o, just turn the lips from round to flat. You just need to retract your tongue a little bit from o to e. The other three simple final can also be read through one or two small changes.

Of course, imitating sounds from life or animal calls can help children learn the pronunciation of these vowels more intuitively. For example, when a child wants to eat, they usually open their mouth and say “ah (a)”.

Next is the grouping of initial consonants, which is also learned based on the principle of simplicity before complexity. During this process, review the overall recognition and four tones at any time.

The next step is the most crucial – combining simple Chinese characters and incorporating the specific use of Pinyin in reading. Usually, under the persuasion of a large number of continuous pinyin, children will start to actively or subconsciously memorize character shapes and corresponding pinyin to save effort.

After another period of time, you will find that children can gradually recognize the pronunciation at the sight of the font shape.

Has Pinyin achieved success and retired at this stage? Of course not. Next, we can teach children to use pinyin retrieval to search for unfamiliar characters and words in a dictionary.

With the help of Pinyin, children can significantly improve their reading and literacy abilities, while also gradually starting to combine their own sentences. On the basis of such attempts, children’s oral English will make significant progress in the future.

The above are some methods for beginners of Chinese pinyin in Singapore to learn how to get started during the learning process. I believe that through them, you will have a deeper understanding of children’s learning of Chinese Pinyin, and can flexibly apply some methods to their learning of Pinyin, taking their Chinese learning to the next level.