The series products of EasyChinese are achievements of the science research project of Beijing Normal University, “Development and Pilot Deployment of E-Textbook”. As we keep improving products based on teaching and learning practice, and now, the series products of EasyChinese have already empowered iPad as a wonderful tool for kids to learn Chinese characters.
The series of products are tailed for 3+ years old kids to learn Chinese characters without aiding pictures. The products with aiding pictures are suitable for kids below 3 years old which only make for kid’s vocal words and do little to teaching and learning of characters.
The main functions of the series products are,
1. Learning by teaching, Kids can play a role of teacher to teach a cartoon fairy, who can follow users pronunciation. This is V7.0’s newly added function.
2. Focus on "learning" and "enquiring learning outcome", not just run on "teaching" and "telling something". Based on characters pool in each volume of primary school Chinese textbook, users are forced to take evaluation unit by unit.
3. Facilitate learner’s learning by demonstrating the standard pronunciation, strokes, wording, meaning and writing of each Chinese character.
4. Evoke learners learning interests through incentive programs such as: (A) let kids teach a cartoon fairy, (B) show the unit learning progress on trophy on home page, (C) tailor-made feedback to the kids quiz. etc.
EasyChinese Pre-school A includes 400 Chinese characters in total. The characters are presented in 38 units according with the units and lessons in
the PEPs Chinese handbook of 1st semester Grade 1.
It is specially designed for children who are:
1. Overseas Chinese children over 3 years old who live in non-Chinese speaking environment and have the needs to learn Chinese;
2. Preschooler of 3-6 years old in Chinese speaking environment, and various grades of students in primary school;
3. The product can also be used as an effective supplementary learning tool to systematic and formal Chinese language teaching;
4. It helps to strengthen the acquisition, understanding and memorizing of the Chinese characters.
The software are not recommend to the following users:
1. Babies under 3 years old.
2. Learners who want to use it as the sole Chinese learning materials and tools.
3. Learners who solely wish to find a shortcut to learn Chinese characters.
Friendly prompts from education experts (for average kids):
1. It is not advised for children under 3 years old to start the formal learning of Chinese characters. But parents may try to help the children learn to read with the aid of pictures, which may cultivate the childrens interest in the characters.
2. Do not let the children over 5 years old learn to read with the aid of pictures, because pictures will distract the childrens attention, which is not inductive for children to learn real Chinese characters.
3. Childrens abstract thinking can be developed with the process of word learning, especially the acquisition of Chinese characters.
4. Children over 5 years old can maximize their capability to learn characters, and try to develop their competence of reading various literatures as early as possible.
5. Dont worry about the negative influence if characters the children apprehend are beyond those learnt through formal classroom teaching, because childrens focus in classroom is irrelevant to their familiarity with the teaching content.