Motherly Notes Methods – Nurture Love Educate

I have no clue how to translate that so it didn’t sound stupid. Whether it was quick reading, quickly read, read quickly, … it was driving me crazy so here it is. 4,5, Quick Read. We got this set because I am preparing the girls to learn both traditional and simplified characters. I like teaching them traditional first because there are more strokes. Just like how I learned, I learned traditional and when it came time to read simplified, it was a guessing game of which part of the word was this in traditional? 70% I could guess right so for me, I think learning traditional first and playing the guessing game at learning simplified was an easier transition. I’ll do a post more on this later but first, let me tell you about this set of books!

Children in China learn to read earlier on. I believe this set was meant for 4 and 5 year olds (hence the name) but I could be wrong. I just got this in yesterday and I was excited to open it. So many have had successes teaching from this super popular set and I can see why. It is very logical. Words, then phrases, then sentences all in one lesson. One builds upon another and at the end of it, you have 552 words from the first 6 books. Then they add the 7th book which includes all the words you just learned, the phrases you learned, and the bonuses of words with the same radicals and also words that sound the same or words that have the same sound but read with different tones. LOVE that resource! The 8th book is where you continue practicing with the 552 words you already know and continue to BUILD upon that through reading. Starting page 20 or so, they start to add in new words and at the end of the book, you would have accumulated another 273 words. Words accumulate faster and faster the further in you go from acquiring 1 new word a day to 11 new words in a single lesson on the last story you read in the last book. I highly recommend this series.

Just to test the series, I went through book 1 with my 2 little ones yesterday. Please note, the book doesn’t teach so fast that you do an entire book in a day! My kids have been reading Chinese for a while and they know all the words in the book already except the simplified characters so all I did was go through the book pointing out the simplified characters to them for them to memorize (which wasn’t much). That’s why they’re able to read the book so quickly. I would assume it’s a lesson a week or every few days with a little one who is new to Chinese!

You can buy this set on Amazon!!! Yay!!! 四五快讀

My good friend also put her son through this and her diary is all logged here for you to review. She has a great blog on Chinese as well. Click on this link to see her ideas on how to use this book.