Motherly Notes Methods – Nurture Love Educate

Age: 5+

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Purchase link: Gloria Bookstore

If you are teaching your child Chinese, you’re probably starting to wonder when to start them on using a Chinese dictionary. For me, it’s:

• when the child knows how to differentiate radicals,
• when they know pinyin/zhuyin,
• when they can respect a book and flip it nicely so it doesn’t rip! (haha, yes, you all know I have ocd … ).

Once you have the above, you can start them on using the dictionary! I was searching for a good dictionary in the last year. One that:

• is not too black and white boring and pleasing to the eye for kids.
• is not too easy.
• is not too hard.
• has zhuyin for every word (this is harder than you think so it’s an option that this book doesn’t have)

For the last point, to find a dictionary that has zhuyin for every word is hard!!! However, when I saw this dictionary, I knew it was my solution for harder phrases and words. My solution is:

• I have one dictionary for kindergarten through second grade.
• I have one dictionary for a solid grade one through six dictionary that covers it all.

So I have both. I found both and I’m sharing the one that’s the second one with a solid first through six grade level content.

I like this set because:

• It has a reading pen. While reading the dictionary if they don’t know the word, they can just use the reading pen to read.
• It has a LOT OF IDIOMS …
• It has idioms and phrases of same meanings and opposite meanings.
• Easy on the eye with pictures. Not all words have pictures but it’s okay. It’s the layout of the dictionary that doesn’t push the child away.
• It has roughly 5000 characters so that it’s enough for up to a sixth grade level in Chinese (which is enough for me).

It also has other features:

• Recording Feature
• Recording stickers
• APP with character stroke order and practice writing. You can also check up words without pointing it at the dictionary
• Zhuyin card to help you learn zhuyin.

Do I really care about the additional features? Not really but it’s nice to know they’re there. What I really care about is the reading pen along with the dictionary. I’ll do another post on the kindergarten to second grade dictionary in another post. However, I really like this one because it covers it all.