Vitamin M: practicing for PSLE Chinese Oral in Singapore

This review is about an online tool from Vitamin M called “Let’s Score! PSLE Chinese Video Oral Practice”. Using this will make home practice for Chinese oral examinations less of a mystery, and more of a specific process to improve outcomes.  Speaking itself is an art, and the Vitamin M Video Oral Practice online course helps to give your child confidence and the right structure to score well.  

Overview of oral examinations in Singapore primary schools

Let’s start with what “Chinese orals” are all about. In Singapore primary school system, the Oral and Listening comprehension assessments typically go together in what is called “Paper 3” and comprise 35% of total year-end marks. 

The oral assessment component is done by way of e-Oral and Video Conversation (看录像会话) assessment for the PSLE.  This means watching a 1-minute video and responding to it.  These videos take some practice to grasp. 

The 1-minute flies by (it will be random footage of a hawker centre, or a car driving on a road, without many words or conversation), and then the student is like a deer-in-headlights needing to express their views and opinions relating to the theme.  The intention behind this is for language learning to reflect living, everyday context and provide authentic situations for discussion.   Of course, it wouldn’t be Singaporean if this wasn’t paired with a very structured answer response method.  

In the exam situations, students have ten minutes to read the passage (on a computer screen) and watch the video.  Then in the exam room, they’ll proceed to read the passage out aloud and the examiner will ask guiding questions related to the video.   The questions tend to be more open-ended, so your child needs a wide range of vocabulary to express their thoughts clearly.   This can be a struggle for many children in Singapore.  

What is Vitamin M PSLE Chinese Video Oral Practice? 一起考好！PSLE 录像口试练习

Vitamin M is founded with the aim to put the fun back into learning Mandarin in a Singapore context.  They provide a variety of innovative online games, tools, courses and classes to motivate children to use and enjoy the Chinese language.  I’ve previously written about their online classes for younger children.  

Specifically, the Let’s Score! PSLE Chinese Video Oral Practice are a set of ten high-quality video oral exam questions, for self-guided learning.  The package is a great set of reference materials for orals to be used at home, including model video response answers.  It’s very possible for a child to go through this by themselves, or it could be more effective if they go through it together with an adult or a home tutor.   

The set consists of ten modules each containing:

  • One video for oral exam questions
  • suggested answer for modelling (also in video form)
  • reading passage with sample teacher’s reading
  • vocabulary practice related to the oral exam question
  • downloadable notes to revise answering techniques (in the popular Description-Comment-Feeling-Suggestion (DCFS) and Point-Explain-Example-Link PEEL formats)

Each of the ten modules would take approximately 1 – 2 hours to go through it thoroughly.    

There is a further feature within the product (which we didn’t use) that allows users to book a one-to-one mock oral session at a discounted price, based on the content in the online materials. We might consider that closer to the time of PSLE starting, so we can get real feedback from teachers who understand how PSLE is scored.  

Vitamin M Chinese oral exam practice

How to use Vitamin M online materials to practice for Chinese orals?

When it comes to revising for exams, orals present a very different can of worms. For written exams, it’s simple to buy a pack of past papers or assessment books and ask the child to practice and compare against the model answer.

Vitamin M makes it possible to practice for orals at home in a structured way.  It also lets them see good phrases, sentence structures, and mannerisms in the sample video answers.   The materials can be used for P4 – to P6.  There is a weighty amount of content in each module.  

We have been using the Vitamin M online materials for about 30 minutes each weekend, doing half a module at a time.  It’s been a helpful process.  We would read the passage and look at the vocabulary.  Then the following week look at the video and go through the model answers.

As a suggestion, I would recommend also trying to practice by recording your child’s attempts (with both video and sound) and reviewing it together with your child.  Talk about how it went, where they did really well, and ways their oral responses can be improved.      

What do we like about Vitamin M PSLE Chinese Video Oral Practice?

  • Modular structure:  it’s bite-size and gives you a schedule to work through.
  • Aligns well with typical PSLE questions:  the video content and passages are designed by a dedicated team familiar with Singapore MOE requirements.
  • Model answers: these are provided in video format, and also with a printout in mindmapping PEEL format which is so helpful for revision.  I appreciate that the video response answers are modeled by children, rather than adults.
  • Cost-effective route for practicing: only $38 for a whole year of access
  • Can be assessed any time:  24/7 and revised as needed.
  • Access to real teachers (in Singapore) for mock session if needed
  • Effective tips: to structure and polish your answers
Vitamin M Chinese oral exam practice

How to prepare for Chinse oral exams if my child is P4 or above?

Practicing effectively for orals at home presents a challenge – it’s not as simple as just creating a home environment where your child can converse and improve their speaking skills or hiring a tutor to converse with.  To make it effective, you’ll need your child to be watching short video content which is like that which is examined, and also be familiar with the typical required structuring for responses of these questions.      That’s why I find the Vitamin M online materials reviewed in this post very useful.

If you need to rope in even more resources beyond the Vitamin M materials, then my suggestion would be to try out the online Vitamin M Chinese Oral Prep Course or their weekly Vitamin M-Star course, which comes with dedicated teachers and the ability for 1-to-1 mock oral sessions (versus just online content package, which is what we have been using).  For more information about Vitamin M live online classes, I have written a separate post.  

Whilst it will take a mind reader to guess what the theme for the oral exam will be, there are some common themes that seem to reverberate throughout the Singapore primary school curriculums (it’s not just constrained to the Chinese language either).  If you’re looking for materials to read or videos to watch, try to consider their relevance with the below themes:

  1. Being helpful and considerate (eg helping an elderly auntie, being quiet in the cinema)
  2. Family piety (doing housework, visiting a grandparent)
  3. Environmental awareness (cleaning the estate, recycling)
  4. Being healthy (health foods, exercising, good habits, road safety)
  5. Favourite foods, places or hobbies

How to prepare for Chinese oral exams if my child is P4 or below?

Chinese isn’t a subject you can last minute cram in and memorise.  It truly is a marathon that needs to be practiced over time.  You can start preparing well before Primary 5 or 6.   Having exposure to various mediums with communication in Chinese such as local radio, newspapers and TV documentaries can make a big difference through accumulated passive language learning.

You can also practice reading aloud every day with your child.  If you’re like me and don’t understand Chinese yourself, please don’t let this stop you from listening to your child read.  As long as you have the time, you can sit with your child and ask them to read aloud.  An optical reading pen will help with the pronunciation and meaning of any unfamiliar words or phrases.

If you are happy with a little screen time, then the below apps/tools could be helpful to encourage active use of Chinese in the house:

The way I look at the orals is they can be free marks in an exam, and shouldn’t take up too much brain capacity or memorization, provided that you’re done all the prework.   Start early and reap the rewards!    

Access to Vitamin M

It is simple to sign up through Vitamin M website (they have many exciting products, not just the online oral materials).

VItamin M are kindly offering  5% off any of Vitamin M products for my blog readers.   You can use the code LAHLAH5 at checkout.

Was this helpful?

I love receiving feedback and also finding out about what your family finds helpful for learning Chinese. Please reach out via my IG or FB feeds.

Please note: Our access to “Let’s Score! PSLE Chinese Video Oral Practice” was given complimentary by Vitamin M for this review. (Thank you Heng and Ying Sheng!).

Parent Review: BrookieKids Chinese Activity Packs

What is BrookieKids?

BrookieKids is a brand new Chinese learning product (app + physical game pack) focused on encouraging kids ages between 2 to 6 to speak Chinese through games.   The intention is to give parents simple tools to bring Chinese alive in the home and everyday life.  It consists of different themed activity packs which unlock a series of voice-interactive stories, to combine with free play.

They’re being officially launched today (28 June). My kiddos were lucky enough for a behind-the-scenes early try-out of one activity pack, thanks to the passionate team behind BrookieKids.

How does the activity work?

Each activity pack contains a number of colourful cardboard cards containing QR codes.  These can be hidden around the house (or used for a memory-matching game, etc) and when a card is found, the QR code can be scanned to reveal an interactive story.  Each object has several different levels to progress through, which become increasingly harder as the game progresses. In total, each activity pack has 15 unique stories.

Who is behind BrookieKids?

BrookieKids is the brainchild of two mothers with a dream to raise bilingual children and create meaningful moments with their children at home.   It was founded in 2021 with support from Enterprise SG Startup Founder grant, NUS Enterprise and NTUitive.

Today they have a four-woman strong team, pooling their broad expertise in teaching, content writing, and technology to create beautiful learning products for preschoolers.    I had to ask the founders what the name BrookieKids refers to.  The answer:  Bilingual Rookies!!  It’s the idea of raising little kiddos on a language adventure.

How we used our activity pack

We were gifted the Hatch Me If You Can activity pack.  It consists of ten egg-shaped cards which need to be “hatched.”  This immediately piqued the children’s curiosity because they’re fans of collecting surprise virtual creatures, as they already use ABC Reading Eggs for phonics.

I hid the coloured eggs around the house, and we used them for a family treasure hunt.  The kids all listened attentively to the stories, to the point they didn’t want to stop playing.  The good part was the different stories and eggs give a natural ‘pause’ for game to be suspended for another day.    The BrookieKids website itself lists a few suggested ways to use the cards, including memory and matching games among other things.

I don’t see BrookieKids are a learning app or learning programme, but more so a type of stand-alone game that comes with an interactive phone component.   I could see this concept working well for outdoors treasure-hunt type activities too, and would look forward to future products which BrookieKids might come up with in this domain!

As BrookieKids leverages the audio and visual from your smart phone, each activity pack is relatively good value-for-money (and good for the environment!) since no additional devices are required to be bought. Currently there are three packs, with many more in the pipeline.

Things a parent will love:

  • It’s not a fully ‘screen-based’ activity, as it has a physical and tangible element for the child
  • Cards are high quality and durable, and come in a box for safekeeping
  • Simple to use right out of the box (open box, download app, and then scan to play)
  • Uses practical daily vocabulary for preschoolers with clearly articulated audio
  • Can be integrated with other routines or daily activities around the house (cleaning, treasure hunt, a daily surprise in the Chinese activity corner, etc)
  • BrookieKids provide FREE outdoor play dates in Singapore open to all families who are interested in learning and practicing Mandarin with their children.
BrookieKids Hatch Me if You can learning pack

Things which could be improved:

  • App interface seems to be hard to close or minimise sometimes (at least on our iphones)
  • The app asks a child questions, to which they respond with the answer verbally and the app takes certain actions depending on what the child has said (eg choosing between one thing or another).  My kids realised at Level 1, since it asks open-ended questions they can say totally incorrect answers and the app still progresses.   This is a deliberate design feature at the earlier levels to cater for kids with lower proficiency, but for my kids it became a competition to say silly things.  Even at the more advanced levels, the stories are relatively easy to get to the end because they’re designed to motivate a child to speak, however without an adult watching, the child could take some liberties, especially if they realise there interaction doesn’t drive much.   The caveat to this is that my kids already have good Mandarin proficency and are willing to play together in Chinese, and this game is designed more for a child who would rely on English.
Brookie Kids app

What my children said:

They all enjoyed it – the app kept their attention and they get through all the stories over a couple of days.  Once my children reached the end of all the levels, the youngest said she would go back and play it alone another time, as the stories are really nice.

They ultimately said it was “average fun” and gave it 7 / 10 stars.  For a game which exposes a young child to about 340 vocabulary words including simple idioms, this is a good score!

Would it work for your family?

I can see BrookieKIds as a helpful tool for parents in learning Mandarin together with their children.  It encourages dialogue, role play, and interactive game play around the house. 

The packs would be really useful for parents who know some Mandarin but don’t use it actively at home, because the activities provide a way to engage positively with the language and show their interest and enthusiasm for Chinese and creating bridges of love to learn together with a child.    Sometimes I meet parents who know Chinese, but because they only ever speak to their children in English, they feel it’s difficult to create opportunities for speaking.  BrookieKids is your opportunity! It would be a thoughtful birthday gift for a friend too.

As a totally non-Chinese speaking parent myself, it was impossible to engage with the activities or understand what was happening, and I wouldn’t be recommending it at all in my situation.  The BrookieKids app instructions and setup are fully in English, but the stories themselves are fully Chinese audio.  Luckily for me, I have two older children in the house who are fluent in Mandarin and they had a great time guiding with my preschooler and using the activity packs together. 

Also note that the child playing the games needs to be able to understand basic spoken Mandarin in order to be able to engage with the stories.  The app is not for a total language beginner as they won’t comprehend the narrative or prompts.

Brookie Kids CHinese activity pack

Where to buy?

BrookieKids products can be bought from their official BrookieKids website and also Shopee.

Current launch price is a modest SGD$15.90 (UP SGD$17.90) with free shipping until 31 July.  Readers of my blog can get enjoy a further 10% discount on all products on their website and Shopee valid until 31 July 2023 using the promo code BROOLAH at checkout. For overseas readers, there is a special international bundle price with shipping included – get all three sets for less than USD$60.  

Note: this is not an affiliate link or sponsored post, however we did receive our activity kit to trial for free. 

GIVEAWAY FOR MY BLOG READERS: I am doing a giveaway valid throughout July for two lucky winners to receive an activity pack from BrookieKids.  To enter, please make a comment below (or alternativity on my IG post) which answers the question:  When is the next BrookieKids playdate?  (answer is on their website). Winners will be determined by lucky draw on 1 August and contacted via email address provided. One winner from the blog, and one from Instagram.

What else is similar to BrookieKids?

BrookieKids is a combination of an app and activity pack which spans LISTENING and SPEAKING.  It makes for an appealing concept for families who try to limit screen time.  I must stress though that BrookieKids isn’t screen free – in fact, the focus of the learning content is all through the screen.

If you like non-screen-based (or low screen) learning technologies, listed below are some other great products I would suggest that make use of audio technologies and visual scanning to bring physical stories/activities to life in Mandarin for home leaning:

Picture below shows us combining the BrookieKids eggs with Habbi Habbi Simplified Chinese flashcards, to create our own extended game grouping objects of different colours.

BrookieKids and Habbi Habbi flash cards

Dou Dou Books: Review of new Chinese levelled readers

What are Dou Dou Chinese Readers?

Dou Dou Books are “first readers” for young children who are just starting to read in Simplified Chinese.  There were meticulously written by an American early childhood education expert, Miss Stella Beaver. Throughout two decades of teaching and researching across top immersion and Montessori schools, she has developed her own books to make learning Chinese fun for a novice reader.

The motivation behind the books was to “reinvent learning” and create an HSK standardised early Chinese reader (meaning they use some of the most common basic words that a learner should know).    

The books are the perfect size for children to read by themselves, and also to pack in handbag and read on the go.  The books contain a certificate at the back where a child can write their name and date to track progress (which I know some families do like).

GIVEAWAY FOR READERS:  For the month of June you can be in with a chance to WIN a set of ten Dou Dou Readers by entering the competition over at my Instagram page.

There are ten books in the first set, each 8 pages long. Together, they cover 33 Simplified Chinese characters The titles in this first set are:

  • 豆豆
  • 你好
  • 不好
  • 爱
  • 小狗
  • 这是
  • 安安
  • 我是
  • 谁
  • 他的

Below is a graphic of how I would place Dou Dou Books compared to popular English series for learning how to read. In my view, they’re essentially a Chinese reading equivalent to the well-known English “Bob Books”, which are known as books that a very young child can read from cover-to-cover totally by themselves. 

Comparison of different leveled readers in Chinese and English

How do Dou Dou Books compare to other Chinese levelled reading systems?

Dou Dou Books is similar to Le Le Chinese Books, because they’re very short books, lovingly illustrated, and consist of just a few words or phrases.  This means they’re designed for a child to read by themselves.  The small short books is like Le Le with a philosophy about whole language learning through stories. It’s different because Dou Dou words are restricted to only 33 characters across ten books, making it considerablty simpler than Le Le. 

Dou Dou Books is similar to both Odonata Books because the stories are connected and build upon one another, and characters are systematically added at each stage. Another similarity is having worksheets and writing books which match the books.  However it’s different because Dou Dou is more repetitive and slow (but really feels like an interesting story book).  So Dou Dou would be better for a younger reader.

Dou Dou Books is similar to Sage 500 because of the simplicity and repetitiveness of the stories, and appropriateness for very very young.  However it’s worlds apart because the stories are actually fun.  Another very obvious difference is the quality of the graphics.   Illustrator Jessie Beaver is currently pursing a degree in animation, and her talent shines through in the ’ cute illustrations of Dou Dou, which took many many months to complete. I honestly feel that if a few more sets of Dou Dou books are written to get it up to 500 characters, it could be a total substitute for Sage 500.

The Dou Dou books would complement any of the above reading systems as additional reading materials.  They wouldn’t replace them however, as Dou Dou Books (at this stage) only cover 30 characters and they’re for very nascent language reading, and the other levelled reading systems mentioned above do go much further (to >1000 characters).    

Below is a video of my five year old reading one of these books.

Pros of Dou Dou Chinese Books

  1. It teaches character learning in a systematic and fun way through reading books (like English Bob Books)
  2. The books are slimline and small, and come in their own cardboard box (also just like the English Bob Books). They’re sturdy and well made.
  3. Cute and clever illustrations
  4. No pinyin or English translations in main story text to strengthen character association (the first page of the book lists out all the new characters contained, with both pinyin pronunciation and English translation)
  5. Audio available through QR code on each book / box – provides very clear pronunciation for each word and phrase
  6. Series of matching activity sheets and flash card – 2 activity sheets per book, including writing, cutting, games, etc, plus writing practice book and 32 character flash cards which match the books, and are a perfect size for little hands.
  7. Wonderful for very young children – If we were to go back in time, Dou Dou readers are certainly books that I would have used with my daughter as first books when she started learning to read (instead of Sage 500).

Below is an example of the words contains in Set 1, Book 1 of Dou Dou Books (the very first book).

The books become progressively harder as the series continues. Below compares Set 1 Book 1 with Set 1 Book 10.

Cons of Dou Dou Chinese Books

Currently there are only 10 very short books in the series, which is nowhere near enough but it’s a great start.   The company aims to put out another 20 books over the coming 18 months, which I look forward to.

If your child can already read ~100 Chinese characters, these all books will be way too easy for them.  In fact, I showed them to my 5-year-old (she’s been reading Chinese since she was 2 years old) and she could read all ten of them in about ten minutes.   She did enjoy though!  

Which Chinese levelled reader is right for me?

Different reading sets have different emphases and curriculum approach. 

Which book to choose also depends on the Chinese reading ability of the parent.    As Dou Dou Books contain a QR code with audio, they will work for non-native reading parents too. Dou Dou is also nice for a homeschool starting out on the reading journey because it has matching worksheet activities making it an encompassing curriculum.

Below is a highly simplified diagram take from an earlier post which has a comparison of Chinese levelled readers for different situations.  As Dou Dou Books first set only covers 33 characters, it wouldn’t replace anything on the below table.  However you could consider it as additional supplementary reading for a child who is doing very first levels of Odonata or Sage 500, or even Le Le. 

Comparisons of the best Simplified Chinese levelled readers

Where to buy?

Online, from the official Dou Dou Books website or Amazon.

What to read AFTER you have finished Dou Dou series?

If your child likes the style of Dou Dou books (short stories they can read by themselves), then Le Le Chinese is by far your best series to continue with.  There are 300 stories in the Le Le readers, and it will take your child up to 1200+ characters over 1 – 2 years of consistent reading.  Le Le are quite an investment, but I do have an exclusive discount code for Le Le Readers which gives you 5% off if you use it (type LAHLAHBANANA on checkout). If your child already know >1000 characters, they can also stat reading simple bridging books too.

Another much cheaper equivalent which has simple stories and slowly introduces a few characters per book is Little Sheep Goes up the Mountain 小羊上山. It’s just the stories are slightly longer and the text is quite small, so not as great for a very young child (but 5 year old + is good). Also, there is no reading pen, so an adult assistance is required for understanding the new characters.

Still looking for more information about injecting Chinese language into your child’s learning?

This entire blog is a passion project focussed on recommending apps and books which are helpful for families embarking on a Chinese learning journey, especially for those from predominantly non-Chinese speaking households.  It’s based on the experience of our family, and our three happy bilingual kids.  If you have found this post helpful, some other earlier posts you might like are:

  1. Luka Reading Companion to narrate Chinese picture books beautifully
  2. Books to read after your child already knows 1000 Chinese characters
  3. Chinese reading dictionary pens to aid in extensive reading for children
  4. Great apps and blogs for families learning Chinese

I would love to hear from you too, especially if you have other great books or tips for learning Chinese as non-native learners. It’s only through meeting other wonderful parents virtually, that this shared language journey becomes a more valuable one! Feel free to reach out via the comments/form on my blog, or else join the conversations on my Instagram @lahlahbanana or Facebook. All comments are welcomed!

Book Review:  Sometimes it rains pigs on sunny days

This review looks at a quirky illustrated fiction series written in the 1980s named Sometimes it Rains Pigs On Sunny Days 晴天有时下猪. The series centres around a school boy who discover he has the ability to make true whatever he imagines, so he starts writing “tomorrow’s” journal entries.  The series was originally written in Japanese, and translated fully into Chinese.  Some books, but not all, have been translated into English too (under the name “Tokyo Pig”, or “Fair then Partly Piggy”). 

This is a bridging book at a perfect level for upper primary reading. If you’re struggling to find Simplified Chinese books that your tween likes, I’d suggest trying this one out.

Key Information on 晴天有时下猪

  • Series name: Fair then Partly Piggy / Sometimes it Rains Pigs on Sunny Days
  • Author:  Shiro Yatama 矢玉四郎
  • Number of books in set:  10
  • Number of lines per page:  14 (with picture on opposite page)
  • Number of pages per book:  80
  • Total length of each book:   ~ 4000 characters
  • Characters required by child to read it independently:  ~1500
  • Pinyin: No
  • Bilingual: No
  • Available in Singapore NLB:  Yes
  • Original language of publication:  Japanese
  • Characters:  Simplified Chinese
  • Audio available:  Yes through Luka or Ximalaya
  • Suggested ages:  10+

Background to 晴天有时下猪

These books reach 1 million copies sold in Japan in early 2000.  The author, Shiro Yatama, was born in 1944 Japan and was an engineer turned writer and cartoonist.  This Piggy series is his most famous, and his other well know series is called ‘A Million Hiccups’.  Both have been turned into cartoon television series in Japan.  We just love Japanese translated booked in this house, and this series is no different.

Synopsis of Sometimes It Rains Pigs on Sunny Days

A third-grade school boy called Nori keeps a diary which is private, and he is annoyed when his mum tries to read it, so he fills it with some absurd ideas to annoy her back again.  Nori’s world changes when he doodles in his diary a sky full of pigs, and then it comes true!

The rest of the story revolves around Nori’s adventures with his hand-drawn loyal pet pig, Harebuta (Sunny Pig).   He tells a girl that if she doesn’t wash her hair for ten days, it will turn into tulip flowers, and it does!     Everything else is then history, as Nori uses his overactive imagination to scribble about what the future will hold in a whimsical world that only a child could dream up.

What a child will like about 晴天有时下猪

  • Hilarious and quirky, yet relatable storyline (kids always love ‘dairy style’ books)
  • Enough pictures to keep a child engaged – good set for boys and girls alike. 
  • Light-hearted and approachable format to read (not too daunting or long, and each book could be read in about half an hour if a child if a child was diligent)
Sometimes it rains pigs on sunny days 晴天有时下猪

What a parent will like about 晴天有时下猪

  • Your child will likely want to keep reading the whole 10 in the series to find out how it all ends
  • There’s no pinyin (good to pair read it with an optical reading pen)
  • Text is laid out nicely and well spaced (not microscopic in size)
  • Pictures are uniquely Japanese and cleverly constructed.
  • There’s a matching cartoon if needed to coax/reward your child. The anime series is actually even more punny than the books themselves, and has been dubbed into English.
Sometimes it rains pigs on sunny days 晴天有时下猪

Insides of book: Sometimes It Rains Pigs On Sunny Days

Sometimes it rains pigs on sunny days 晴天有时下猪
Sometimes it rains pigs on sunny days 晴天有时下猪
Sometimes it rains pigs on sunny days 晴天有时下猪
Sometimes it rains pigs on sunny days 晴天有时下猪
Piggy with a chance of rain
Piggy with a chance of rain

Some watchouts and considerations

  • If you intend to read it using Luka, some of the ‘text only’ pages are hard for Luka to identify

Where to buy?

Online has plenty of options if you google 晴天有时下猪. 

Ours came from a favourite book store which has since shut down.  However I’ve seen them also at the physical book store Maya Yuyi in Singapore, along with on Amazon at some ridiculous price, and on Taobao at an inversely ridiculous price.

If my child likes this, what are other similar books in Simplified Chinese?

Some books which my children have enjoyed at a sort-of-similar reading level are:

If you have other suggestions similar to Sometimes it Rains Pigs On Sunny Days I would gladly listen! It gets gradually harder to find books which my tween is keen on reading, and we’re always looking for new suggestions.

Book Review: Squid for Brains Chapter Books

This review looks at the Squid for Brains Readers (also called Mandarin Chapter Books) published by none other than Squid for Brains.  These are different from the Squid for Brains Picture Books which I’ve reviewed earlier, however the Readers are just as zany and unique.

One thing I try really hard to do with this blog is to share content about resources which have been helpful to our family and for which very little information exists; this Squid For Brains series is certainly one of those gems.

Key Information on Squid for Brains Chapter Books

  • Series name: Squid for Brains – Readers
  • Author:  Dr Terry Waltz
  • Number of books in set:  5
  • Number of lines per page:  ~ 20
  • Number of pages per book:  90 – 120
  • Total length of the book:   8000 – 11,000 characters
  • Characters required by child to read it independently:  The easiest book consists of 175 unique characters.  If a child knew ~1000 characters total, there’s a good chance that they’d be able to read nearly everything.
  • Pinyin: Yes, and it’s kept on different page from the characters
  • Bilingual: No
  • Available in Singapore NLB:  No
  • Original language of publication:  Chinese (also available in Spanish)
  • Characters: Traditional and Simplified versions
  • Audio available: No
  • Suggested ages:  10+

Background to Squid for Brains Chapter Books

Squid for Brains is the brainchild of Dr Terry Waltz, a talented translator, interpreter and language educator extraordinaire. The intent of all Dr Waltz’s books is to have readable and accessible content for students learning Chinese as a second language.   The books are cemented in the theory of comprehensible input to gain fluency in a language, and having meaningful literature for beginners (for older children and adults, especially).

Comprehensible input in Chinese is a rare genre – it means purposefully written books for an older learner, that are more interesting and longer than children’s literature, but deliberately simpler in vocabulary.  As a Chinese language teacher of 30+ years, Dr Waltz has written these books for use in her middle school and adult classes and has mastered this type of literature.

Specifically these Chinese Readers focus on high-frequency vocabulary used during year 1 of most American middle school / high school Chinese programs.

Synopsis of Squid for Brains Simplified Chinese Readers

  • Milo:  175 unique characters.  Milo and his friends from the Robotics Club are hoping to take part in a competition, but there is some drama among the cool kids
  • Susan: 207 unique characters, and the first chapter itself only has 23, which means a student in their first month of learning Chinese could attempt it (with quite a lot of help……).  About a crazy teen girl called Susan and what she gets up to.
  • Tom:  369 unique characters.  Tom is a boy struggling with romance, chores and family life.  You’ll be surprised!
  • Kaleo:  375 unique characters. When Kaleo’s parents disappear at the Bermuda Triangle and he moves in with his uncle in Hawaii, an adventure of a lifetime unfolds.
  • Josh:  417 unique characters.  Josh is picked on at school by a bully and busy at the family dairy farm after school.  Drama arises when a new girl joins his school.  (to be honest, the books start getting quite hard by this point). 

What my daughter likes about the series

  • Simpler text with a complex story at an age-appropriate level – reading Peppa Pig in Chinese as a tween/teen isn’t at all interesting, but reading Harry Potter in Chinese is still a long way off.  Squid for Brain Chapter books are a great in-between, on the easier side, but encouraging a child to keep reading for pleasure at an age-appropriate level.  They work well for adults too.
  • Use of translanguing – For names of people, places, foods, tv shows etc some of the books use English interspersed between the characters (eg Cheesy Tuna Surprise, Tennessee Fried Chicken, PowerBall.  This brings the narrative to life more for a beginner.

What a parent will like about Squid for Brains Simplified Chinese Readers

  • No pinyin beside the characters, but there is a glossary at the back and pinyin on the reverse page –  A general pet peeve of mine is any beginner book that contains pinyin above the characters.  Squid for Brains books are free from this.
  • Limited yet relevant character count– you can buy these books with more certainty that your child actually will be able to read them and learn a handful as new characters too.  It will also likely take them quite a way to chew through the books, so it’s like a mini-project for them.
  • Matching syllabus – A teacher or homeschooler would appreciate that are some card games and other teaching resources that coordinate directly with these novels,  to allow vocab practice.  These are also available from Squid for Brains.
Squid for Brains Readers
Pinyin is shown on the reverse page from the Chinese characters
Squid for Brains Readers Glossary
Easy-to-reference glossary at the back of the books

Insides of the Squid For Brains Readers

Squid for Brains Readers
Example page from Susan, one of the easier books in the Squid for Brains Reader series
Squid for Brains Readers
Example page from Susan’, one of the easier books in the Squid for Brains Reader series
Squid for Brains Readers
Example page from Kaleo, one of the most difficult books in the Squid for Brains Reader series
Squid for Brains Readers
Example page from Josh, the most difficult books in the Squid for Brains Reader series

Some watch outs and considerations

  • Variability across the series:  Not all the books are equally funny – in fact, my daughter flat out said some are boring.  Some of the formatting and style differs across books too, as it feels like the individual books have been written over many disparate years (which I think is possible true look at the book imprints …. They differ from 2012 to 2016)
  • Humour is targeted for older readers and has a very American slant: some of the pop culture references and puns are only punny if you’re American and get that type of satire.

Where to buy Squid for Brains Chinese books

I bought ours direct from Squid for Brains website.    There are some copies on Amazon and other online bookstores, but largest variety is at the author’s website herself.

If my child likes this, what are other similar books in Simplified Chinese?

Some books which my children have enjoyed at a sort-of-similar reading level are:

  • Mandarin Companion series (review here) – these books also used the ‘comprehensible input’ pedagogy, and retail classic tales in simple text.  The ‘Breakthrough Level’, starts out with 150 unique characters.  These too would work for teeangers/adults as the storylines are more rewarding, and the themes more grown-up in nature.
  • Zoroli series (review here) –  these are more of early readers mixed with comics.  They’re not written with a limited character count, but on the whole are quite simple.
  • Mi Xiao Quan series (review here) –  this is a household name in mainland China, a bit like the equivalent of Diary of Wimpy Kid in English.   Good for a child trying to build up their reading muscles.
  • Chinese Graded Novels: Books for not-quite-beginners – this post compares four other book series which are written as novels for older beginners to try (not nearly as funny as Squid for Brains, but similar in their length and difficulty level) 

I hope you found this introduction to Squid for Brains Readers helpful. I would also love to know what other books you think are great at this same emergent reader level for older children. Please share any ideas below. I”d love for this page to be a resource to sharing other book at a similar level.

Ting xie word lists and apps for Singapore curriculum

Revising for ting xie using apps

This post has links to all the word lists I have created which align with the MOE Primary Chinese curriculum 欢乐伙伴. They’re ready-made word lists to use with your child to practice ting xie.

Helping children to revise for the weekly Chinese spelling tests is a challenge, especially if you cannot read Chinese. I fully appreciate the difficulty of this. That’s why for our family Skritter is an essential app, which all kids use for both learning and revising their ting xie (听写). I’ve added wordlists that I have made based around the Singapore MOE textbooks into this app to share with you.

I’ve previously written a detailed post about Skritter last year, which is a good place to start if you haven’t heard of Skritter before. If you do know what Skritter is already, continue reading below.

Understanding the Singapore MOE Chinese character lists

The Singapore MOE textbooks (Chinese Language For Primary School Textbook 欢乐伙伴) do contain a character list at the back of each book. These are not words or vocabulary per se, but rather lists of characters divided by chapter. Each chapter roughly takes 2 weeks, (but I’ve been told that some of the brand name schools will rush each chapter in one week, so they’re able to get further ahead).

The characters at the back of the books are divided into tables showing the “must recognise” and “must be able to write”.  But, they’re still not words. They also don’t come with any translation or pinyin, which increases the challenge for non-native Chinese parents.

Let me enlighten you…. there is an easier place to look at the words in the chapters of the book themselves.   In the book text itself within each chapter, you’ll see:  “我会认” which is what students are only required to recognise, readout, and write in hanyu pinyin.   我会写 requires everything in 我会认 but in addition, the child must know how to write the character.

However, these are still not actual WORDS.

Going from character lists to word lists

Some schools (very few in fact) just drill the child on characters. However most schools will expect an understanding of how to use the characters in actual words. It’s these words which will make up the weekly spelling tests The latter is also a sensible approach if you want your child to understand the characters in context and usage, but it creates an even bigger challenge for a parent as these wordlists are not typically supplied from the schools.

I learnt from other parents that the lowest effort approach to finding words is to go through the accompanying workbooks and texts and pull out words / sentences containing the relevant characters. It’s probably simple if you can read the text. Yet it actually requires quite a lot of patience and technical assistance if you’re an illiterate parent like me. Which is why I’m making this post, because in it, I’m sharing the word lists in case it helps you spend more evenings playing with your kids rather the scouring Chinese textbooks and deciphering character.

At the start of each school semester, I upload all the weekly tingxie characters, along with some selected words that these characters are contained within (eg instead of adding just 你, I would add 你好, or instead of 下, maybe 下午). I’ve now collated these from Primary 1 to Primary 5.

Why actual words are important

Chinese words are made up of combinations of characters.  A child could be able to read each individual character but have no idea how they work together. Hence why extensive reading is an important aspect to attaining fluency in a language, especially a non phonetic one. If you start out by focusing on words during tingxie revision, it will mean that your child will learn actual vocabulary, and this in turn will help with reading comprehension too. ,

The real vocabulary lists which you should be studying are not the characters in the back of the textbook BUT the word lists contained within the textbook chapter themselves.  In the in-chapter vocabulary lists, it often highlights words to use for basic level (the grey colour background in the example below), and then the additional vocabulary for higher-performing students (pink colour background).

Is there an easy way to collate out all the words related to the characters from the books? I have never seen one. If you do, let me know.

Ting xie word lists in Skritter

This is the main point for this post. HERE ARE THE TING XIA WORD LISTS!!!!

I’ve put my improvised word lists based around the MOE characters lists into Skritter app, because that’s the app we use. These are the links to the word lists I’ve created. If you set up your own Skritter account, you can add these lists, and start learning. Alternatively, you could export them and add into a different learning app. Skritter does have a 7 day free trial, and no, I have no affiliation with them nor profit/sponsorship from this post 🙂

We’ve tried a few different Chinese writing apps, and if practicing stroke order and writing is what you’re looking for, then Skritter is the for sure the best option here.

Click links below to access:

Textbook 1B – https://app.skritter.com/link/zh/?link=https://skritter.com?deck=5744405660434432&apn=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&ibi=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&isi=1370892114

Textbook 2A – https://app.skritter.com/link/zh/?link=https://skritter.com?deck=4582240709902336&apn=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&ibi=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&isi=1370892114

Textbook 2B –https://app.skritter.com/link/zh/?link=https://skritter.com?deck=4670174333108224&apn=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&ibi=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&isi=1370892114

Textbook 3A –https://app.skritter.com/link/zh/?link=https://skritter.com?deck=5421054731878400&apn=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&ibi=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&isi=1370892114

Textbook 3B – https://app.skritter.com/link/zh/?link=https://skritter.com?deck=5151978648371200&apn=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&ibi=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&isi=1370892114  (missing two weeks)

Textbook 4A –https://app.skritter.com/link/zh/?link=https://skritter.com?deck=6457557074182144&apn=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&ibi=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&isi=1370892114

Textbook 4B –https://app.skritter.com/link/zh/?link=https://skritter.com?deck=4554686713954304&apn=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&ibi=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&isi=1370892114

Textbook 5A –https://app.skritter.com/link/zh/?link=https://skritter.com?deck=6306204269019136&apn=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&ibi=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&isi=1370892114

Textbook 5B –https://app.skritter.com/link/zh/?link=https://skritter.com?deck=6124579556032512&apn=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&ibi=com.inkren.skritter.chinese&isi=1370892114

Practising for ting xie

Frequent practice is always more effective than a last-minute cramming, and Skritter enables this. Skritter will read out the characters/words, demonstrate stroke order, test the child’s understanding of the word, definition and tone, and keep track of progress, including spaced recognition to keep up the repetition beyond just learning for the weekly tests.

The lists can be tailored to learn any or all of writing, reading, definition and tone. Under ‘settings’ you can choose which option for which words. The lists can be done in a ‘Learn’ mode, which shows examples and allows practice, and also in a ‘Test’ mode where the word order is randomised as the results are recorded. Usually I will turn off all the test modes aside from character writing, as I feel that’s the most engaging practice method. For a child who needs assistance with pinyin, it would be helpful to enable the ‘tones’ testing too.

Skritter is in no way fun nor a game. It’s simply an app which provides a stress-free and ordered approach for spaced repetition of wordlists. It provides a great option for non-native families, as the app itself can read out the words and give guidance on stroke order and formation, which is something I don’t have a chance of being able to do for my own children.

Of course, science has shown that even better for memory than an app is old fashioned pencil and paper writing. So once your child has learnt the words, you might ask them to write them out on paper too. We do this by opening the word list on Skritter, and I get Skritter to read out the word, and my child writes it on paper.

A fun way to reinforce the characters is to play games using the characters. Two paid apps I would recommend are iHuman Hong En Chinese (despite not having a Singapore MOE option it’s excellent) and Maomi Stars (which does contain the Singapore MOE curriculum for Primary 1). Another alternative for a non screen-based approach is the Alpha Egg AI writing pen (which uses real pen and paper).

Practising composition writing

Another great way to improve in ting xie is to actually use the words to create your own stories. There seems to be some reluctance – at least in traditional teaching pedagogy in Singapore – to let children start writing their own journals, or composition pieces until about P3. This means in Singapore, a child spends about 2 years (or more) learning how to write characters or words, before they are expected to put a sentence together. In a total contrast, in most English teaching approaches in US / UK / Australia, children are encouraged to write sentences before they can even spell!

My suggestion would be to start using the Chinese words as early as possible! Get your child to write a short comic, or a sentence, or speech bubble using words they’re learning. If they don’t know the words, they can draw a picture, or write an English word in replacement. Really using words and composing pieces will help make ting xie revision even easier.

If you’re in Singapore, you’ll be able to very easily (and cheaply) come by lined books for Chinese composition writing. Most don’t have space for a child to draw pictures and make their writing pretty, which is why I actually went a step further and designed my own journal writing books for my kids (with big squares, with pale yellow dotted guidance grid lines). Yes, I’m a bit nutty when it comes to Chinese learning. As an aside, I’ve now put these Chinese journal book templates up on Amazon (at print cost – Amazon do the printing and binding and will send to you) if you’re looking for something which is a little more appealing for a child. This is my first attempt at doing this, and any feedback is welcomed 🙂

What else?

In case you’re looking for other suggestions for levelling up your child’s Chinese, here are some other earlier posts I have written:

Best Children’s English Composition & Creative Writing Books

Comparison of Books for English Creative Writing and Composition (in an Asian context)

English creative writing in Asia is an area where there is often little focus at school, and also limited environment for fully utilising the language to its full advantage. Where composition writing is done in schools, the model approaches are usually very specific and limited in their genres, and tuition centres thrive on being able to teach children the ‘winning’ approach. However, I’m sure it can be learnt within the home too – and this post reviews three books which are excellent companion texts to encourage English creative writing with your child. Each is good for different reasons, as described in this blog post.  

Supporting a child to improve their writing really can be as simple as giving them good creative writing books, that are accessible and offer words, phrases, ideas or models for a child to create high-quality output.   My kids have benefitted greatly from having all three of the books covered in this review.

High level comparison of the three books is given in the table below.

Descriptosaurus: supporting creative writing

Books for English composition writing in Singapore

What:

Descriptosaurus is a thematic expansion of a dictionary and a thesaurus, designed for a student to be able to expand their vocabulary, and sentence structures.  The book is loosely grouped by settings, characters, and creatures.  Aside from the general Descriptosaurus book,  there are specific theme-based books which can also be bought (such as Ghosts, Fantasy, Adventure, Myths and Legends) for a child who has a particular interest in a particular genre.  The book is helpful for a reluctant writer to understand how words can come together to create beautiful descriptions, yet also wonderful for a passionate writer who needs to add more colour and variety into their pieces.

Table of Contents Descriptosaurus
Descriptosaurus
English composition writing books

Pros:

  • Hugely comprehensive resource (possibly the ultimate resource for creative story writing)
  • Covers a wide range of genres and scenes, from real life to fantasy
  • Hard copy book which could be used and shared around a classroom
  • The book has been created and refined over a number of years as a result of feedback from children inside and outside the classroom in the United Kingdom
  • Wide appeal and usage from early primary school through to secondary-age writers

Cons:

  • For an Asian context, the book doesn’t have so many relevant descriptions to appropriately describe foods, weather, Asian facial features, hawker markets, festival, etc.
  • For a Singapore-specific primary school focus, the book doesn’t have the so-called “powerful words” that teachers will be expecting students to contain in their essays, and nor does it contains any references to idioms/metaphor and intended structure for short composition pieces
  • Size and weight of the book is big – the book itself contains a lot of of extra content (eg sample poems, stories, printable grammar pages, punctuation, etc) which are excellent, but perhaps more useful for a teacher or homeschooling parent than for the child themselves.  This prevents the book from being something a child could easily carry around in their backup to/from school or the library etc.
  • This book is intense – no pictures, and lots of word walls.  For a child (or parent) who is still nascent with English, this could be off-putting.
  • The price ….. the basic book is ~USD52  (Kindle versions are a better idea) 

Write Like a Ninja: essential toolkit for young writers

Write Like a NInja cover

What:  

Write Like a Ninja is an almost-pocket-sized book, designed to let students turbo-charge their writing with powerful descriptive words and unique vocabulary choices.  The books is essentially a child-friendly thesaurus, with a few grammar tips too.  It contains tonnes of alternative for overused adjectives, and also themed vocabulary wordbanks to describe settings, characters, foods, feelings, and more.   Write Like a Ninja is clever, catchy, super user-friendly and very well priced.   This book has been great in our family for giving to my kids to use as an alternative to a thesaurus and up levelling their writing, especially personal journal writing.

Write like a Ninja contents page
English composition books
English composition books

Pros:

  • Short and sharp, with all content being relevant and practical for a young writer
  • Clearly set out, and highly approachable for a child, even a child with less confidence in English reading – it’s simple style, design, and layout, with some fun decorations
  • Where explanations are needed, they’re simply and concisely written, with nothing extra that will confuse a child

Cons:

  • It’s really targeted for a younger learner, or a child who needs to be empowered in their writing
  • For a more confident writer, a thesaurus might be a more helpful text than this book
  • The book mainly has stand-alone words, rather than full phrases or sentences
  • For a Singapore-specific primary school focus, the book doesn’t have the so-called “powerful words” that teachers will be expecting students to contain in their essays

A Way With Words: turn your compositions from good to great

A Way With Words

What:  

A Way With Words is a creative writing resource to expand descriptive vocabulary and give structure to writing, especially composition pieces and journaling for primary-age students.  The book is divided into a descriptions of people, places, and actions (including use of metaphors, proverbs and idioms).   A Way with Words is specifically narrow and focused, with an emphasis on real-life examples (not fairy tales, monsters or villains) and culturally relevant to descriptions of scenes in a South East Asian context (eg tropical weather, hawker centres, moral values, etc).  It follows the format recommended for composition pieces in a Singapore MOE and PSLE context, which in itself is very specific and unlike other creative writing approaches.

English compo book
A Way With Words
A Way with Words English Composition book
English composition books

Pros:

  • Well-designed reference book that can assist you to walk your child through creative writing and journaling
  • Based around the use five-senses, to show how words and phrases can generate images in the mind of readers
  • Aligns with standard approach for Singapore composition writing in schools, yet with a fresh and unconventional perspective.
  • Short, sharp, and contains wordbanks and descriptive words without other waffle or written exercises for a child to complete
  • Provides practical advice on how to plan and structure an English composition piece.
  • Better than most books on the shelves of Popular for composition writing

Cons:

  • Specifically for composition writing and journal pieces, rather than fantasy / fiction writing (it’s not going to make your child a good storyteller, but might help them attain a higher score in an English exam)
  • Very focused on descriptions for Asian context, so some turns of phrase may not translate well for overseas readers (eg references to hawkers centres, HDB apartments, durians and tropical fruits, etc)
  • Not designed to be fully comprehensive, but contains writing prompts for a child to unleash their own creativity

(DISCLAIMER – I am very good friends with the author of A Way with Words, so more than a little biased here. That said, I’m always looking for great English composition books in a Singapore context, so please drop me a line if you know of others worthy of mentioning here.)

Where to buy the books from

In Singapore, none of these books appear to be available from traditional bookstores. All are available from Amazon, and the links are below (note: these are not affiliate links).

What about other books for composition writing?

This post has been a very rare diversion from my usual focus on encouraging Chinese literacy. I would love to find books which encourage creative writing in Chinese, in an equally approachable and fun manner (note – just like many of the famed books for English creative writing are too convoluted for use in an Asian context, I’ve also found many of the mainland Chinese creative writing books are too advanced for use outside of China). Any suggestions or leads are welcomed in the comments below or via Lah Lah Banana FB or Instagram.

Book Review:  Squid for Brains Picture Books

Squid for Brains Simplified Chinese books are a set of books that I chanced upon randomly, after discovering one lone picture book in book-sharing free library.  My interest was piqued by that one book, yet after googling I could find little about the series, aside from the fact that more similar books existed.  Despite the Squid for Brains facebook page having less likes than even I do, I went against gut feel and ordered a few more books from their website at a whim.  I’m glad I did, and here’s what we discovered.

Note – Squid for Brains have books written in both Simplified and Traditional Chinese, along with matching titles in Spanish.  This post specifically covers the two Squid for Brains Picture Book sets. I have another post covering the Squid for Brains Readers (which are longer and chapter books).

Key Information on Squid for Brains Picture Books

  • Series name: Squid for Brains – PandaRiffic Books and Zhongwen Bu Mafan! Series.
  • Author:  Dr Terry Waltz
  • Number of books in set:  PandaRiffic – 6, and Zhonwhen Bu Mafan – 8
  • Number of lines per page:  Quite varied, but maximum 6
  • Number of pages per book:  30 – 50
  • Total length of the book:  Varies but approx. 1000 – 1500 characters
  • Characters required by child to read it independently: 19 – 100 unique characters (as in, each book only contains that many characters, so if a child knew 500 characters total, there’s a good chance that they’d know nearly everything in the book)
  • Pinyin: Yes, and it’s kept on different page from the characters
  • Bilingual: No
  • Available in Singapore NLB:  No
  • Original language of publication:  Chinese (also available in Spanish)
  • Characters: Traditional and Simplified versions
  • Audio available: No (but works great with Luka Hero Point and Read function)
  • Suggested ages:  Beginner readers of any age

Background to Squid for Brains Picture Books

Squid for Brains is the brainchild of Dr Terry Waltz, a talented translator, interpreter and language extraordinaire. Whilst little exists on the web about these books, I gather that the intent of these books was to have readable and accessible content for students learning Chinese as a second language, building on the theory of comprehensible input to gain fluency in a language.  In Dr Waltz’s case, she says she uses  ‘comprehended input’™  because it’s even more digestible than typical comprehensible input, meaning there is nothing left uncomprehended by the reader.  That’s getting into semantics, but I love her audacity to create meaningful literature for beginners.

Attaining fluency through graded reading books with limited character count is a concept featuring in many of my children’s favourite book series.  Why?  Because these are the books that they can pick up and read, understand, and enjoy, as they’ve been meticulously designed and written to be approachable for a non-native reader, with a limited character range.  I have this ongoing struggle with the children when they finish a series about ‘which book next?’ because comprehensible input in Chinese is a rare genre.  My kids are well beyond Mary & Jane type books, but the gap to reading Harry Potter in Chinese is still a very evident one for my children.   Something like Squid for Brains is a good gap-filler.

The author herself, Dr Waltz, is a Chinese language teacher of 30+ years, and those who have done her online classes (focussed for adults) cannot recommend her enough.

Synopsis of Squid for Brains Simplified Chinese Picture Books

  • Zhongwen Bu Mufan! Series: unpredictable short stories, made from highly limited word count (eg the Guiseppe story contains on 19 unique Chinese characters, to tell a story about a guy who looking for the pizza toppings of his dreams).  English words are used where necessary to get the story across.
  • PandaRiffic Series:  based on traditional folk tales, but with a Panda as the main actor (eg Pandarella, Panda White, Panda Soup, Panda Jack and the Bamboo Stalk, etc).  These books are slightly longer with an increased characters range.
Squid for Brains Simplified Chinese Picture Books

What my daughter likes about the series

  • Very punny:  That’s right.  These are satirical and contain plays-on-words that my kids appreciate, such as the Mal-Wart store, a Cyley Mirus concert, and Bordon Cramsie in the kitchen.  My kids had a good laugh about ‘NiTube’ rather than ‘YouTube’.
  • Simple to read and understand: The books are very much intended for early language learners, and focus on high frequency words.  Some of them follow familiar stories, and others are familiar scenarios.   All of them have a touch of humour.
  • Balance of text and graphics: Large sized and clear text, with bold and silly illustrations.  Some of the illustrations are the type of thing a child could draw using MS Paint, so my kids find even the pictures simple to understand how they were created. 

What a parent will like about Squid for Brains Picture Books

  • No pinyin beside the characters, but there is a glossary at the back:  A general pet peeve of mine is any beginner book that contains pinyin above the characters.  Squid for Brains books are free from this.
  • Has a colour-coded approach for characters and tones, and spaces between words:  this may or may not be relevant, depending on how well your child understands the tonal nature of Mandarin.  For learners from non-native backgrounds, there is a unique TOP (Tonally Orthographic Pinyin) Romanization System designed by Dr Waltz, which colour codes the characters in 4 colours depending on their tone.  Quite fascinating and intuitive approach with some more info on the author’s website here with rationale for the character colour coding.  Additionally, there are inserted spaces between words to make the text more accessible for beginners. 
  • Printed using a hand-writing style font: the font used (in their new edition books) is a proprietary Squid for Brains Chinese handwriting font, which is intended to look more like handwriting, so it’s easier for a beginner to copy versus printed fonts.  I like this concept a lot!  
  • Accompanying teaching guide:  for teachers / home schoolers, you’ll appreciate that  there is an additional teaching guide to which can be purchased, containing classroom-tested activities, digital flipbooks, cartoon strips and tasks, etc.

Insides of the Books

Squid for Brains Simplified Chinese Picture Books Panadarella

Some watchouts and considerations

I really want to love Squid for Brains, but I cannot give it a fully unqualified thumbs up for a few reasons.  This is a bit of an insight into why it’s really hard for small-time writers.  It’s never easy being a self-published author.

Firstly, only half the books I ordered actually arrived.  We’ll blame US Postal service for that.  So that’s a lesson for me that I should pay for proper courier service if it’s offered. Squid for Brains team was very kind in arranging redelivery.

Secondly, of the books that arrived, one of them was in Spanish when I’d ordered Simplified Chinese (thankfully my daughter is learning Spanish too, but it wasn’t what I’d been planning for).  Then, another book had the correct front cover, but inside had contents for a totally different book (it was a great book, but the wrong book).   That’s the printer’s error.  As I understand it, there isn’t much bargaining power when you’re a small business and the printer sees you as a dime a dozen.

Finally, inside one of the books, there were a few small grammatical errors that my daughter picked up (like differing tones of a character).  Again, this seems to be the printer using perhaps a wrong file, and I guess if the printing press cannot actually read the files they’re printing on-demand, this is bound to happen too.  I’d compare this with something like Sage 500 books, which are heralded as being the holy grail for teaching kids to read in Chinese.  Sage 500 books are literally littered with mistakes too, but people never complain about that, do they?

All in all, that sounds like a laundry list of small niggles, but it’s really so you go in eyes wide open.   They’re REALLY great books, although some headwinds with the execution.  I’m glad to be able to support an independent author / illustrator / publisher like Squid for Brains, and hope that others will also find Dr Terry Waltz’s efforts helpful in their own language journeys.  We’re looking forward to reading the Squid for Brains more advanced bridging books next (they look even more intriguing than the picture books).

Where to buy Squid for Brains Chinese books

I bought ours direct from Squid for Brains website.  As mentioned above, there were a few issues with their delivery, but the company was very responsive and apologetic. 

There are some books on Amazon, and I’m guessing lost packages and returns would be much easier through that channel.  However, it’s Amazon making the $$, and I’d rather support a great author directly if I can.

If my child likes this, what are other similar books in Simplified Chinese?

Squid for Brains Simplified Chinese picture books are very accessible for an emergent reader, containing modern stories with a decent – but short –  storyline.  There’s not too much similar which I’ve come across (although happy to be proven wrong on this).

Some books which my children have enjoyed at a sort-of-similar reading level are:

  • Little Dim Sum Warriors Bilingual Tales series (review here see part way down post) – short story books for emerging readers about silly little dumplings with a lot of heart.  I think the level of satire is on par with Squid for Brains too.
  • Odonata Graded Learning Short stories: Odonata has graded learning readers (designed for learning 1200 characters), which I’ve reviewed before, but they also have short stories that match these readers.   The first stories all contain less than 100 characters.  They’re very kiddy in story design and pictures, so won’t appeal to older children.
  • Mi Xiao Quan 米小圈上学记一年级 series (review here) – their Grade 1 books contain pinyin above the words, and are a good laugh. However overall sentences/content is harder than what most beginners would be able to manage, let alone length, but these work well for a child who already has a good spoken understanding of Mandarin.
  • Levelled readers for younger children: overall, I’d advocate that if your child knows only a handful of characters, that you should progress systematically through graded readers, and I’ve put a few ideas previously about Chinese levelled readers  (eg Le Le Chinese would be a good pick, or Little Sheep Goes up the Mountain) and read shorter stories with lots of repetition of characters and climb your way up to knowing 1000+ characters.  At that level, many more doors open up!

I hope you found this introduction to Squid for Brain helpful. I would also love to know what other books you think are great at this same novice level. Please share any ideas below.

 

Christmas gifts for preschoolers 2022…. with a Chinese literacy twist!

It’s my final blog post for the year!  As always, the entire month before Christmas will be dedicated to a social media free Advent period (so please forgive the spelling errors, as this is being hurriedly typed in the few minutes before we jump on a plane).

Given there is still time to buy Christmas presents, this post very quickly lists out some things to consider to put Chinese into the gift list, especially focused for the little ones (kindergarten and preschoolers). If you’re reading my blog, it must mean your family has some remote interest in Chinese. So please consider giving something Chinese to keep languages alive and magical in your family this year end.

Habbi Habbi Bilingual Puzzle

Habbi Habbi design beautiful board books to encourage early literacy, with uplifting and purposeful content.  Our family has both their Chinese and Spanish sets of board books, which I’ve reviewed before.  But new in 2022….. they have introduced BILINGUAL PUZZLES.  These puzzles can work with the same reading wand as their books, which means as the child builds the puzzle, they can get narration of the elements in the puzzles in two languages, and also some other fun sound effects which bring the puzzle to life.  Every part of the puzzle is tappable with the wand.  The puzzles are sturdy and big pieces, delightful to hold, and still a good challenge for a preschoolers.   It’s printed with both Simplified Chinese and English.

Habbi Habbi Bilingual Puzzle

Little Bun Book

Miss Panda Chinese – a superb bilingual blogger – has released a bilingual storybook about feelings called Little Bun.  It’s available on Kindle Unlimited and Amazon, and in hardcopy.  The book is bilingual for young children (target ages 2 to 6), and written in both Simplified Chinese and English with pinyin support.  There is also an online audio reading. What I really like is that it’s a book about feelings, and how to express emotions in words, which can be ever-so-hard in one language, let alone two.  The adorable illustrations are done by Miss Panda’s daughter Emily.

Little Bun Bilingual Chinese book for toddlers

A Very Noisy Christmas – bilingual version

A Very Noisy Christmas is a fun re-telling of the Christmas story for young children written in both Simplified Chinese and  English, with pinyin.  If you read it as planned, your house will be filled with shouting, singing and raucous laughter. It’s a lovely one for a parent to read to a child, and having both languages means parents could take it in turn to alternate between the two.   For parents who cannot read the Chinese, there is a lovely audio recording of the book by Malaysian actor Robin Khor.

Maomi Stars App

Maomi Stars is hands down THE best literacy app for preschoolers.  I’ve reviewed it before too, if you need a reminder of what it’s about.  If you are hunting for a perfect gift for your children or a friend who is on the language journey, consider giving the gifts of learning and getting a Maomi Stars virtual gift card.  It’s not going to clutter their homes, and it’s surely going to be used (especially as their syllabus now includes Singapore MOE wordlist).  There is a Holiday Gift e-card giving a 3-month subscription for $45.95 or 6 months for $75.95, with access for 3 children on the one device.  The app can be modified for Simplified, Traditional, Mandarin and Cantonese.

Maomi Stars app gift voucher

Squid for Brains Books

Squid for Brains have some fun but simple Chinese picture books that you might have a hope of reading and your child understanding, because they’re designed for children from non-Chinese speaking households. That means they focus on more common words a learner would know, and provide good word repetition (but by no means boring). Squid for Brains picture books are easier than the typical books you’ll find on the library shelves. They come in both Simplified and Traditional Scripts.

Squid for Brains

Little Dim Sum Warriors bilingual books

Dim Sum Warriors app and doodle dates are favourites at our place, for combining drawing with Chinese and bringing out a wildly creative side. I’ve reviewed the Dim Sum Warriors flagship product previously, which is why it might be a familar name for you too. Their store is having a Christmas sale using the promo code ‘smartcookie‘ for 10% off. Their Little Dim Sum Warriors bilingual children’s storybooks make great and affordable Christmas gifts – written bilingually with Simplified Chinese and English. Keep a look out at Dim Sum Warriors will also be hosting some free Christmas-themed online doodle dates

Little DIm Sum Warrior storybooks

What are you going to put on the Christmas list to help with Chinese?

Hopefully you have your own wonderful ideas too. For more ideas, check out my post from 2020 on Chinese literacy gifts and book recommendations for Christmas, including for older children. Bridging books are also a great idea for a child with slightly more advanced reading skills.

And in case you were curious – NONE of these links are affiliated (as with my blog philosophy). The best thing in life is to give, and give freely, especially at Christmas.

Blessed Christmas!! 圣诞节快乐

Helping a child to write Chinese characters

Why writing Chinese characters is important

Writing is important for literary in any language (especially non-phonetic ones) as the sequential movement of the fingers and hand hardwires the brain to learn. It’s especially important in learning Chinese, and there are some fun ways to help your children to learn to write Chinese characters.

Whilst it may seem archaic and mundane, writing out Chinese characters by hand has been proven by research to be a key tool in the acquisition of literacy in Chinese. It is possible to learn to read without writing, but at least for languages without alphabets, it’s been shown that to become literate nothing beats handwriting with pen and paper. And, literacy has been shown to be a key aspect in becoming fluent in a language when it’s not learnt via immersion. So, henceforth, learning to write the old-fashioned way is an important aspect of Chinese.

Handwriting s a really important technique for acquiring Chinese as it is comitting to muscle-memory the different components of a character, and being able to associate them to specific character groups (ie radicals) and meanings. Many characters looks ridiculously similar, so it’s only when writing them out to perfection that the differences will jump out. Also more generally, it’s been shown that when something is handwritten, it’s more likely to stay in the brain’s memory longer, which is an important aspect of learning vocabulary. What’s more, for more digital Chinese dictionaries, it’s incredibly convenient and fast to look it up by writing the character out.

However, it can also be very tough for a child to figure out correct stroke order and it is very repetitive in execution. It’s even more challenging if you’re the parent who cannot read Chinese, and you’re trying to oversee a child using pen and paper.   There are all sorts of gadgets and smart apps for learning to READ Chinese characters which I’ve written about on this blog, but there are far less on how to WRITE Chinese characters. There are even less which involve physically holding a pen.

Ideas to help kids write Chinese characters

This post includes a few ideas for encouraging your child to write more in Chinese. It’s things we’ve done in our house, in no particular order. Do forgive the videography! There’s a reason why I don’t usually post videos.

1️⃣ Tracing characters onto magnetic tiles

This is a good way to start, especially if you have some flash cards or early readers with enlarged characters and stroke order. Of course it could be done with tracing paper too, however if you use the tiles it’s also a helpful way to write sentences by arranging a string of tiles together.

If you have the infamous Sagebooks 500 set, the inner square of the larger size magnetic tiles fits exactly over the numbered stroke template page, which is handy too.

2️⃣ Skritter Write Chinese app

Skritter is a great app for spaced repetition of tingxie, for a primary-age child. It’s not fun. It’s not gamified. It’s literally just writing out characters from a user selected list, which is perhaps what some families do on paper, but this is on tablet format. It’s good because it keeps track of the characters, corrects for wrong stroke order, and it uses clever AI to repeat characters where the user is weaker. I’ve reviewed Skritter in detail over here.

3️⃣ Alpha Egg AI Writing Pen

This is a smart digital pen that resembles a conventional pen, and it writes on real paper. If you saw it on our dining room table, you’d be mistaken thinking it’s really just ordinary pen and paper – in fact my husband has used the pen to scribble notes whilst working from home without realising the amazing equipment he was holding. The Alpha Egg AI writing pen is equipped with sensors to detect movement and pen position. When paired with an app via bluetooth, it can give real-time feedback on stroke legnth, order, size. The accompanying books teaches over 800 characters. This method is really standout to me as it’s real pen and paper -and several scientific studies have shows stronger brain activity after writing on paper than on a tablet or smartphone. I have reviewed Alpha Egg AI Writing Pen in more detail in a recent post.

4️⃣ Maomi Stars app

Maomi Stars app is a wonderfully put together app, which encompasses reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills in Chinese. It’s ideal for beginners, through to more advanced (syllabus included Singapore MOE Chinese Primary 1 standard). It has short fun games, and is customisable and cute. It works for non native and native speaking families, which options for Simplified Chinese and Traditional, along with Cantonese and Mandarin. One especially great feature is that it contains a plethora of preloaded wordlists including from well known levelled readers (eg Sage, Odonata) so you can use it to mirror you home reading. Every character includes a finger writing component. I’ve reviewed Maomi Stars in detail a few months back, and please not that is has ONLY GOTTEN BETTER since my review!

5️⃣Osmo Masterpiece app

Osmo is a unique piece of kit which aims to create tangible experiences and hands-on learning from an ipad. We use it for math, Englsh and coding, and it’s excellent. It has one app which can be adapted for learning to write Chinese characters, but it’s a little gimmicky. Unless you already have the tool, I wouldn’t be recommending this approach. Basically you can use the Osmo Masterpiece app (which is for teaching your child to draw anything) and instead let you trace Chinese characters. We did this hack from using our Le Le flash cards. You could basically do it with any sheets of printed characters or soft copy, and the app will let you trace it out using physical paper. My kids like to use their washable chalk books rather than paper.

6️⃣ Youdao pocket printer

This one is a hack, for anyone who happens to be lucky enough to own a Youdao pocket printer. It’s a mini inkless printer which connects to your phone and prints out onto receipt-size paper. It has many uses for it, but a good one is template tracing sheets as it’s so cheap and easy. You can literally photograph the character (or graphic) that you want to print out, and then send it to the printer within seconds.

Youdao pocket printer with Chinese character tracing

7️⃣ Magic water writing cloth 水写布

This is a mess-free way to practice more of traditional Chinese calligraphy / brush painting. This magic cloth paper is a bit like a thin picnic mat, and is reusable. The output really looks like real ink too, except without the mess and the smell. It only requires a brush and water. When the water dries, everything is erased (it stays for about 20 minutes though which avoids frustration!). Some even come with 米 grid squares, or even with printed characters for tracing printed on them. This is our magic water writing cloth being used with the flash cards which show stroke order.

Magic water writing cloth

8️⃣ 田英章 writing books

Some bilingual mothers swear by these books saying that 田英章 is THE master in Chinese handwriting & calligraphy, and the reason why their kids write so neatly. It’s basically books which contain tracing paper, and allow you to go over the printed characters. These were recommended to me by an online bookstore called Owlissimo, which used to stock these. They don’t seem to anymore, but they have other great Chinese products.

What else would you suggest to help a child write Chinese?

Once a child has picked up basic writing skills, there are other ways you can continue to engage them in their penmanship, such as with composition pieces, doing calligraphy, or perhaps even writing to a penfriend (my kids have a penfriend that they send snail mail too, and they were highly motivated to improve their own character writing when they saw how difficult ot was to read someone else’s handwriting).

If you have other great ideas for helping children learnig to write, I’m happy to check it out, test them out and add it onto this blog post too.

In case you’re looking for other suggestions for levelling up your child’s Chinese, here are some other posts you may enjoy: