There are good and bad information explosions in the Internet age. Major parenting bloggers have different opinions, and the recommended English picture books are also varied. The more you read, the more confused you are: teaching words or reading picture books or listening to nursery rhymes? When will I be graded and enrolled in the foreign teacher class? Do you want to go to a private bilingual kindergarten?
I used to be anxious about how to treat English enlightenment. When choosing a picture book, if there is a bilingual version, it must be in English; When I was less than one year old, I began to play English nursery rhymes to wash my ears early. Qi Zi had never come into contact with China's picture books before 15 months. . . And so on.
Finally, one day, I realized that I was fooling around in an unorganized way, so I began to calm down and ask myself: What was my original intention of enlightening Qi Zi in English? Is it for his language ability to reach the level of his mother tongue or for preparing for the exam? What will happen if you don't do English enlightenment before you are 3 or even 6 years old?
In fact, in the final analysis, English is only a language for communicating with people, a tool for understanding the world outside China, and it is not a decisive factor for a child's success. In that case, why are you so anxious about English enlightenment? What's more, the child is not stupid. Parents constantly instill it every day, and then the expectation of their children's output as soon as possible will inevitably be reflected in their words and deeds. Your anxiety transmission will never positively affect your child. If you accidentally over-stimulate the child and polish the child's reading interest, then in the end it is really not worth the candle.
After understanding these problems, with a relaxed mood, I began to seriously study several books that have a good reputation in the children's enlightenment market (see the end of the article for the specific list), hoping to look at the enlightenment ideas and practical methods of people who have experienced it and find the most rational and realistic way of English enlightenment.
Seeing this, someone may interrupt me and say that English will be taught in schools in the future, so why should such a small child enlighten me? Then please take a look at the following picture first:
This picture comes from Patricia Kuhl, Dean of the Institute of Cognitive and Brain Development Science at the University of Washington, USA. She gave a speech at TED-"Baby's Genius Language Ability". It was mentioned in the speech that children are fully capable of learning two languages at the same time before the age of 7. After the age of 7, the language area (Bullokar area) will be completely closed. At this time, if you start learning English, your brain will store it in the memory area, and the use of language will depend more on the way adults learn foreign languages-rote learning. So what I can think of is: since there is an advantage period of getting twice the result with half the effort, why not use it to let children do what they are best at the best age?
Before it's too late, hello, parents who are willing to enlighten their babies in English ~ The following is the English enlightenment method (0-5 years old) summarized by me and Qizi after learning the enlightenment list, for your reference [Sun] [Sun]
0-3 years old: only for parents with foreign language ability. If both parents are not good at English, you can skip it completely, don't worry.
Parents sing children's songs and nursery rhymes (if one parent has a good English foundation, you can talk in pure English-but it is not necessary)
Deny the so-called "ear grinding"-incomprehensible language is noise to small babies. This is actually very easy to understand. Even if you were allowed to listen to Arabic conversations blindly for two hours every day for two or three years, could you learn? The correct way must be to combine the scene, first through visual cognition, and then through sound to contact the scene, so as to achieve the effect of grinding ears.
At the same time, some research shows that "children before the age of two and a half can only learn the language interactively with living people, and the input of audio and video is invalid", so what I emphasize here is parents singing, not playing it to children by machine.
3-5 years old: 3 years old is the best time to start. You can learn a foreign language naturally through cartoons, graded books and parents' teaching.
[Heart] Parents can speak English in real life contexts, such as home appliances, animals, fruits, toys and daily life: get up; Brush your teeth
Some parents will say I can't do anything. It doesn't matter. Just click on this book [top left]. It contains most life scenes and is a good reference book for parent-child enlightenment. Or you can choose to go online to find some common sentence patterns in life and print them out.
[Xinyu] Parent-child reading (graded reading), parents read aloud to their children, with interesting and exaggerated tone and even actions.
Why not recommend picture books? Because picture books are unsystematic, single, messy and unstable in difficulty. Picture books can be read, but as a tool for children to acquire a foreign language, the cost performance is too low. It is suggested that in the actual exercise process, graded reading materials should be given priority to, supplemented by picture books, so as to provide more fun for children.
There are several sets of graded reading materials suitable for zero-based reading. It is suggested to add several sets at the same time to increase children's reading volume and interest:
RAZ, red rocket, I can read, Hyman.
[Xinyu] Watch original cartoons for 20 minutes every day. You need to be accompanied by your parents, explain the story when appropriate, and discuss the application after reading it.
Super simple songs with simple melody and easy lyrics are suitable for enlightenment.
Maisy Mouse Bobo is close to life, with simple language and beautiful pictures.
Caillou, a life story between a 4-year-old brother and a 2-year-old sister, is suitable for cultivating children's good habits.
There are many choices for this kind of cartoons, which can be screened according to children's interests. I will continue to recommend good-looking comics in the future.
Recommend two very useful animation apps. Although we haven't started watching it yet, I have downloaded the backup [Yiya].
6-year-old: natural spelling (because this article is mainly aimed at the English enlightenment of babies, I won't expand it here, and I will open another one later)
To sum up:
[Sun] Never regard English enlightenment as a child's learning task. Unconscious "acquisition" is a kind of subtle learning, and it is also a more suitable learning method for children.
[Sun] It is best for parents to sing and read nursery rhymes within 3 years old. You can't and don't have to worry, because the biggest advantage of enlightenment at this age is pronunciation. If the parents' pronunciation and intonation are not authentic, it is of little significance;
[Sun] Formal enlightenment after the age of 3: vocabulary of life scenes+cartoons+graded reading materials
The above is my sharing. Welcome to leave a message to share personal experience and learn from each other!
The following is a list of enlightenment methods, which I recommend you to have a look at when you are free. This may make you feel anxious.
I'm Mommy Qiqi, focusing on mother and baby/parenting/personal growth. Want to see more content, click on the avatar to follow [Come and see me] [Come and see me].