Hey, that's great! I wasn't sure it would work with chinese characters, but I just set my computer to simplified chinese and it worked fine. Thanks so much!

Hypatia said: "I wonder if it's a matter of practise or if so children are more gifted with their drawing abilities."

I think it really is a matter of both. My son has always been great with fine motor skills ie putting tiny screws into holes etc. But he is not good at drawing and a bit better at writing at nearly 4.5 yrs old. He has always been very interested in writing, and pretends to write all the time. He has also been able to write his name for about a year now, as we started with X O X O on cards to grandparents, and his name has only T, O and A... in lower case t is just an X on its side, an o is an O and an a is an o with a line on the side. So he's very proud he can write his name. But he can't draw things... I have never seen him make a man (head with eyes, nose, face and arms and legs), only once or twice ever a circle with a line for a mouth and two dots for eyes. Other than that he scribbles colors back and forth in a blotch of color (like you're trying out your crayon) and declares it is a helicopter, or a man, or a dog.

On the other hand I, and my little sister, could both draw pretty recognisable objects at even 3 yrs old. I am now an illustrator for a living (so my son does have a drawing table in my studio and pretends he draws all the time... so the practice doesn't equal any talent!)

He is better at making recognisable letters, and some like the T, O and A evolved out of easy shapes, and now he is doing ReadingEggs they have online dot to dots for the letters, and we have the printed materials and like others have suggested, they contain tracing over predrawn letter shapes, following letter shapes made out of dots etc. They start with the easiest ones like a, t, s, l, i. And though he is very motivated (begs to do it) he still is very very wavery in his lines and all over the place.

Some other suggestions I have heard are 1) putting some poster paint in a ziploc bag so that it makes a thin opaque layer in the bag, tape it down on the sides to a table, and the child can trace letters with their fingers, and then "erase" by flattening out again 2) drawing letters with fun tactile things like pudding on a baking tray or table 3) drawing letters in sand or snow 4) having one letter per page, that is large and can be filled in or outline, and have child put magnets along the letter shape (I hotglued wee pompons to magnets and we put the page on a cookie tray) 5) using cookie cutters (we got a set made for jello jigglers!) in alphabet shapes to cut out playdough, cookie or pie dough (or jello!) If you made cookies, the child could stick on raisins, chocolate chips or other "dots" along the letter shape in the same order as one would move a pencil to write the letter.

There are many other fun really tactile ways to have a child "write" letters, learn their shapes etc. But really, so much depends on an individual child's motor controls and interest.

You’re right, Twinergy, and I’m giving Prihem a karma point too... thanks for the other forum suggestion. I’ll check it out. And perhaps post on the P.E.T. (Parent Effectiveness Training) book and its techniques once I have received and digested it. Thanks again everyone.

And no, I do not wish to start pinching my son in his upper arm... and I’m pretty sure he’d be very vocal about that too: “OW MOMMY! You PINCHED me! That HURT! Don’t pinch me, that’s not NICE! Be NICE to me mommy!”... really I don’t want to deal with entire stores staring at me while he loudly states that to me, revealing I am pinching. Currently I have already slapped his fingers when he gets tired of me telling him not to grab stuff off of store shelves (and yes, I DO discuss with him calmly first, and DO tell him again before going into the store, bending down on his level and getting his agreement, and he will even tell me before getting to the store: “No touch things in the store, no running, no shouting, ok”... and I do engage him with me in the shopping, and I do get down and explain to him he might just drop and break that nice $12 glass bottle of olive oil he has just grabbed at. And he HAS seen what can happen, ie the time he managed to grab four containers of bulk black olives and pitch them in the shopping cart on top of all the fruit and veg in their plastic bags, and they all opened and everything was plastic sopping in black olive juice. When he gets tired of being told not to touch, he stares me in the eyes with a defiant look, says “ I WANT to” and just blindly grabs out at anything as I push him by whether it is something he wants or not, breakable or not, dangerous to his fingers or not... ) Frankly I think it’s his personality... in ReadingEggs, he often points to the correct answer, and then says “I wonder what will happen if I click the wrong answer?” and is often delighted by the “oh oh, that was wrong!” or the supposedly dissuasive “beeep” indicating an error, and will repeat what he knows is an incorrect answer just because it amuses him. Sigh. At least he’s curious and inquisitive!

So I am looking for parenting and disciplining alternatives... not to replace slapping fingers with pinching. thanks anyways.

I am currently interested in good books on parenting and discipline too. I am not anti-spanking, but would prefer non-coercive alternatives (I don’t want to replace physical punishment with psychological abuse which I think is worse), and recently ordered P.E.T., Parent Effectiveness Training, which has recently been revised. I have also been recommended Positive Parenting and 1-2-3 Magic, neither of which I have seen.

So I was interested in looking up the How to Train Up a Child book. I saw on the website that it is a very Christian religious organization, but that doesn’t mean anything if the material is good. So I then looked it up on Amazon.com and was rather appalled by extracts taken from the book in the reviews. I certainly have never seen a book get over 500 1-star reviews before, but more than that, it was the examples taken from the book itself (including page numbers) that turned me off this book. Whipping babies? Hitting wee children too young to know right from wrong? I really cannot imagine that children this young are capable of even knowing what they are doing, let alone that it is something they are being willfully disobedient to continue to do after many warnings. Choosing a switch with no knots to not break the skin? Choosing plumbing tubing to hit your child with? This isn’t “spanking”. I suppose it works, in the same way that any painful negative input will instill respect and change behaviour (I really respect my iron since burning my arm on it and never goof around using it), but it certainly isn’t isn’t an attitude I wish to use towards my child or any child.

I am sorry but I just want to warn people to check out How to Train Up a Child on amazon or other review sites, and consider carefully that even if they leave out the “pro-spanking”, it is something they wish to spend their money on and follow. http://www.amazon.com/Train-Up-Child-Michael-Pearl/dp/1892112000

maybe they'll come out with more?

oops! I just read it again... it is the exact brand I bought, but this is the previous model: E-2000, 1 Gig memory, and the one I bought at http://bigreach.ca is the newer E-2003 2Gig model. I think you can do an upgrade on the E-2000 model to bring it up to E-2003 in function, but it seems to have half the menu. The Disney books are available on Amazon.com as well I think, for the eReadbook pen.

Note that this is a battery powered toy thread, and this does NOT take batteries: it is rechargeable with any regular electrical wall socket.

Yes, Patreiche, that is the exact one I got. They are all bilingual, that is why they can read English and Chinese.

ps, the Bigreach.ca site in Canada ships internationally: they shipped to someone in Spain who read about it on my blog!

That's really interesting... it must be a trend. I just wrote about finding the eReadbook Touch Reading pen, both on Amazon marketplace and in Canada at http://bigreach.ca and I bought one just 6 days ago.

Same thing, we are loving it, being able to read in Chinese with a touch. We have a set that comes with eight beginner books (some which are great for my 4 yr old, some which will be better later on as they are text-heavy such as a book of chinese proverbs, a book of science knowledge and a book of math questions), and we upgraded to the package that includes three books of 600 Characters each (pinyin, character, english translation, sentence, several 2 character words using that character), and also eight Classic Fairy Tales, including Little Red Riding Hood, which is what my son and I are going through now.

The reading is done by the pen using mp3s uploaded to the pen (the company did it for me before shipping the pen, though you can do it drag and drop on your computer... the cd comes with the books), and like you say, is very clear. Not computer voice, but many various voices from small children, to grown men... everyone from the bugs drawn on the pages, to little red riding hood, to the wolf, to grandmother to the hunter all have their own appropriate voices, and the reading is very well done... they speak colloquially so we really get a feel for the syntax of sentences. In the Three Little Pigs, my son was totally amused by the Big Bad Wolf running away squealing that his butt hurt!

We also have the English Chinese children’s dictionary, which is over 300 pages long, hardcover, and says the word in English, then Chinese, has chinese pinyin and character translation, sentence that reads in Chinese and English, and when you touch the pen to the illustration for each entry, it also says a pertinent phrase or sentence in both English and Chinese. This will be a good English dictionary for my son as well as a bilingual Chinese one, as it helps him read the English words too (it is alphabetized by English word, ie look up “on” to get “shang”... and sentences for both, as well as a picture)

We really love our set. If anyone is interested in getting the pen from Canada (http://bigreach.ca), you can say you were referred by Leanne (Wenjonggal’s blog), and my pen ID # is E2003-132067. Email your order to “[email protected]” and they’ll give you $10 credit on your NEXT purchase of books, and credit me $10 for refering you off MY next purchase of books.

You can read about it at my blog:
http://wenjonggal.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/ereadbook-touch-reading-pen/ and
http://wenjonggal.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/ereadbook-last-couple-days-of-free-shipping-and-happy-sharing-program/ ... at the first entry there are links to book samples and trial pages... that is what sold me, and also that this particular brand has a gazillion books to choose from.

I wish I’d had this pen three years ago when I started Chinese!

I am doing phonics and other reading work in English at home with my son, as well as Chinese, partially because I don’t want him to get too behind when he goes to school... he will be schooled in public schools here in Montreal, in French, which is his third language if you count that he was born in China, started learning English at home at age 2 when adopted, and French starting with me a bit, and more now that he is in daycare several days a week starting age 3.

He has a preference for English, and now his French is his second strongest language since I am not a native mandarin speaker. So his native language has become his worst.

When he enters school in French, he will be learning to read and spell words that are not the first that will come to his mind when he thinks of phonetics or associations to images. So I want to start him off on a good foot by having a firm understanding of what reading is, what phonetics are, using English, his dominant language. So that when he has to start learning that “eille” “ez” “er” are all French ways of spelling the same thing, he can concentrate on that, and not on being confronted for the first time with the IDEA of reading, of letter to sound correspondence.

I truly believe he won’t be bored or be ahead of the other kids (except that he will be multilingual... when they start English in school it will be “dog,that is the english word for un chien” ! and he’ll already be reading in english). I think the French will challenge him, and I couldn’t do as good a job as the school in teaching him to read and write in French. I’ll continue the English and Mandarin at home.

Does anyone have any thoughts about how helpful it is for me to 'chat' to my daughter for say an hour or so a couple of times a week? (saying things like "what are you doing?" "what colour is that...?" "this animal is a lion" etc etc.)  Because she is so young at the moment, the level of language that I would need to speak is quite simple and straightforward.  Do you think she be resistant or confused by this?  Or will it just seem normal after a while?  I could then reinforce pronounciation with DVDs and LR files.
 

This would be GREAT! If you can do that, it is probably a perfect way to start... after all, babies learn so much more from interaction, especially within a context, than dvds or flashcards (though of course the effectiveness of both those are increased by interaction with the parents). This won’t make your child bilingual as in fluent, but it is what we are doing in Chinese (which I am just learning), and I am constantly surprised by how much my son knows in Chinese (especially compared to kids who go to a special Saturday Chinese class once a week).

You don’t need ANY extra time to chat like this... point out things you know the names of when you shop for food, while you are eating dinner, while getting dressed, washing her body etc... and of course we speak to our own children in their fist language in short simple phrases and point out simple objects etc all the time, not in huge long sentences nor just with flashcards. I point out different vehicles while walking down the street with the stroller: “qi che! kan kan qi che! Da da gong gong qi che! Xiao hong se de zi xing che!” (car! look at the car! Big big bus! Little red bike!) And then point out the same things in a board book at home.

You’ll do great, and it will be a great step forward for later in classes, or with native speakers! And you are not alone. Few of us are unemployed stay at home moms who can dedicate whole days to foreign language instruction: even the homeschoolers often have older kids, or businesses etc that take a lot of time... any  language engagement is a step above none! Have lots of fun! And maybe your own language skills (like my previously nonexistent Chinese) will improve a lot too!

Mac-only here too!

I agree with Joha. In fact I agree with her for any age. I have been trying to teach my son mandarin as I learn it myself, and it is going very well I think. He certainly isn’t fluent in mandarin, but he can sing songs, knows many words and phrases, can count to ten and today we were playing Kingka game with our Chinese tutor (just a native mandarin speaker who comes to our house for about an hour or so once a week) and it was obvious that my son knows many chinese characters as well, saying the chinese pronunciation and matching the character to the corresponding photo with no difficulty.

I just try to surround him with lots of different chinese media: dvds both for learning chinese and actual shows in chinese, music cds, stories on his mp3 player, books together with cds that we listen to and follow along, flashcards... and we try to learn things from our tutor that I can use throughout the week, like “mama washes your face, mama washes your tummy, mama washes your hands...” “put on your shirt, put on your pants, put on your shoes...” “where is baby? I can’t see baby! I’m looking for baby but I can’t find him! Is he here? No! Is he there? No! Is he under the table? No! Is he behind the chair? No! Oh! I found baby! He is here!” etc... very simple so I’m not making a lot of syntax mistakes, but still we are doing very interactive use of the language in our daily life. We hide toy animals and name them as we find them etc.

We are doing English, French and Chinese. English is my mother tongue, French I learned as a teenager/young adult, and Chinese I just started at perhaps 43 yrs old! So far it is going great. Keep at it! Don’t worry! they are like sponges, and really don’t seem to mix things up, except to put words that they know into sentences of another language they are learning when they are missing the vocab in the new language. We all do that... that is why in English we say “pizza”! Have lots of fun, even if you aren’t perfect yourself! And with other input, your Spanish will improve too!

Rechargeable batteries are the way to go.. I have both Sony and Energizer.
For electronic toys we didn’t have many when my son was small... he liked a little Giraffe toy where you put transparent blocks in the top and it goes down its neck and makes a sound each time. We also really like the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Home (I think they have a Kitchen and Farm now)... they are great as they don’t take a lot of space but can turn any doorway or room into a playhouse, complete with doorbell, working lights and radio, telling time, counting, ABC song etc... good for from perhaps 11 mos to at least 5 yrs old... just the younger ones will use it to help standing up, and motivated to reach up etc to push buttons, and the older ones will use it for makebelieve scenarios.

My son who is now 4 got a Vtech Tote And Go Laptop Plus last year, and is just now growing into having the patience to understand the instructions (“press the L” “what letter comes between these two letters?” “Which number is bigger 4 or 8?”) and carry out the commands... before he just wanted to push buttons to make noise and I don’t think he got any learning out of it at all. I think he’ll be growing into it until he is 6 or 7 yrs old.

He also has a Fisher Price “Learn Your Phone Number” Laugh and Learn telephone, which is really bad for learning a phone number (it doesn’t tell the child so the child can memorise it, it ASKS the child. When the get it wrong, it gives them one number, ie “Your phone number starts with “5”. Now what is the rest of your phone number?” As if anyone even an adult could guess a phone number if given just one number at a time. But it was very attractive to him, leading to a lot of make believe games, and also saying numbers when they are punched. Again, now at 4 yrs old he is growing into being able to play some of the learning games re numbers and letters that are included in it.

For small kids, I think the Fridge Phonics by Leapfrog are great. We have the “matching farm animals” barn one. It is bilingual English French which is fantastic here in Quebec, and has catchy songs as well as sounds and matching for kids as young as can stand at a fridge. We also now have one that is a refrigerator that opens and has food magnets that fit inside... each magnet is a food with a different letter, and it says the letter and something about the food... my son walks around saying “E. Eggs Break Easily”, which cracks me up.

I got it today as well. Right before nhockaday posted here.