Book review: Two excellent books

I've just finished reading two excellent books.  Both are highly recommended.

The first one happened because at the moment Mulan is writing an essay for school.  She has to choose four works that are connected by a single theme, so I was enlisted to give her reading suggestions.

With works and theme completely open, Mulan had a hard time narrowing her choices.  First up, she chose Dune as her first book (she simply likes the book).  She then needed a theme, and eventually settled on fictional works in which the author has a political intent.

Over the school holidays, while we were Covid-isolating, I scanned our home bookshelves and gave Mulan:

• Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
• Animal Farm, by George Orwell
• The Plague, by Albert Camus
• Erewhon, by Samuel Butler
• Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy
• and a little later, Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder

(She had already read a couple of these, and she read the others during our family lockdown.)

Why did I give Sophie's World later?  Because I wanted to read it first!  While I'd heard great things about it, I'd never got around to reading it.

What stands out for me is that it's a very cleverly written book.

First up, Gaarder attempts to explain the history of Western thought, from the pre-Socratics through to the existentialists, to teenagers!

Yeah, how many teens are going to want to read a textbook on Parmenides, Aquinas, Hegel, Sartre and so on?!

So, the first clever bit is that we meet soon-to-be-15-year-old Sophie, who starts getting mysterious letters from an unknown person.

The letter-writer turns out to be a philosophy teacher, who posts mini-lectures to Sophie, and we get interested in the dryer details of Plato, Aristotle and so on because Sophie gets interested in them.  We also have the mystery of who this teacher really is and how/why he is writing to Sophie.

But just as we're getting comfortable in Sophie's world, and getting to know the teacher, Alberto, we are introduced to another almost-15-year-old, Hilde, and her father who works for the UN in Lebanon.  But there's definitely weird, spooky stuff happening in Sophie's world.

By halfway through the book our philosophy lessons have moved through the ages and we're dealing with issues such as how-much-can-we-really-know and what-is-ultimate-reality-really-like in Descartes, Kant, Berkeley, and so on.

And then we get to the first of the two main twists in the story.  Without giving too much away, what we have in places is a book within a book, with the author teaching his readers via another author teaching his reader via another author teaching his reader.

What I especially like is how Gaarder is able to clearly explain the challenging ideas of these brilliant historical people in ways that can connect with normal life.  A big part of the story is the connection between the mini-lectures and Sophie's experiences in her world.  The ideas are made real to the reader (while at the same time challenging the reader to think about what is really real!).

If I was to be picky I might occasionally critique Gaarder's understanding of some of the ideas, what the historical writers were really saying, and which historical writers should be covered.

But at heart, this is an introductory book for complete beginners.  Of necessity it's sometimes going to be cartoon versions of the complex ideas.  But the historical names are the standard ones that all undergraduate philosophy students should be comfortably familiar with.  For any teens who like this kind of stuff the book will give them a head start before they enter university.

Most importantly though, this book is essential reading for all teens, to help them enter, and become participants in, that long conversation of human thinking.

---

The second book I've just finished reading is Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True, which I borrowed from the local library.

Reminiscing alert: I distinctly remember, back when I was 12, a conversation I had with a school friend.

I'd grown up in a moderately conservative Christian family, and it was simply part of my unquestioned worldview that God created the world from nothing.  I'd never even considered any other possibility than that he'd formed the plants and animals and us at some unspecified time in the past.

But somehow, and in some way, by the time I was 12 I'd heard about evolution, that humans had evolved from other animals rather than being created.  To me at the time it was a weird and curious new idea, so I mentioned it to my friend one day.  He just looked at me like "yeah, of course."

His reaction made a lasting impression, because his apparent "of course evolution" made me reflect on my earlier "of course creation."  How is it that we can have opposite reactions when we both live in the same world and see the same things?

A sizable chunk of the next 15 years of thought for me was reconciling this and reorienting my worldview to match the best evidence.  It was about spending time listening to experts.

Coyne, as a biologist, is one of those experts.  His 2009 book is an excellent summary of the evidence.

In multiple ways, with innumerable examples, Coyne explains how the physical evidence around us perfectly fits the theory of evolution by natural selection.  In fact it fits so perfectly that for practical purposes we can call it true, and we can treat it as true to the same extent that we can treat atoms, gravity and germs as true.  Its predictive and explanatory power has been extremely successful.

He also explains why the physical evidence does not fit creationism.  A big part of this is showing how biological structures are often imperfect and non-ideal make-do add-ons and adaptations of existing structures.  In multiple ways they are not what we would expect to see if biological creatures were made fresh from nothing.  Instead, they're exactly what we'd expect to see if creatures evolved.

Coyne plausibly replies to creationist objections against evolution, showing how the objections fail to disprove evolution.

All of this is written in a very readable way for non-experts like myself.  It was an enjoyable read, with plenty of examples well-picked to fit the clear and explicitly labeled argumentative structure.

I'd picked this book to read, in part because I occasionally browse Coyne's blog, but also because P Z Myers, who is also a biologist, recently again recommended Coyne's book.  (Here's Myers' review back in 2008.)

What Coyne's book reinforced for me is that the world around us shows abundantly that the only way creationism could be true is if God was a malicious trickster-god.  Firstly, if God exists he must have intentionally set things up to try to fool us with all the evolutionary evidence, and secondly he must have intentionally set things up to cause lots of unnecessary pain and suffering in his creation.  In the very unlikely event that a personal creator-God exists, his creation shows us that he's in no way worthy of worship.

Again, I'd recommend this book for all teens and up, and especially those who are interested in science and religion but prefer to get their facts right.

School English assignments

Mulan has just finished her third unit study topic in her English class at Westlake Girls High School.

She started with a study of a Roald Dahl short story (they were partway through it when she arrived).  In Covid lockdown this was followed by a three-minute speech (videoed).  Most recently they've done a film/video unit, where the first half was a photography study learning different types of shots (using our camera at home).

The second part of the film/video unit was on the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  Mulan and I watched it together a couple of weeks ago, and Mama watched it later on her own.

As I wrote last year, for the past couple of years Mulan and I have been watching movies together.  We pick anything from classics, to pop culture, to thought provoking, to merely entertaining.  We talk about them together, laugh at the silly ones, and discuss the thoughtful ones.  In that time Mulan has developed her own sense of what is good and what is bad.

For the most part we complete movies to the end, but occasionally (rarely) Mulan decides that some are really too bad to bother continuing.  (Breakfast at Tiffany's, Clueless and Top Gun were examples of movies Mulan considered too silly to bother watching beyond ten minutes or so.)

As Mulan watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding she was really not impressed.  I suspect that if it was her choice she would not have bothered continuing with it to the end.

Then she had to write two pieces for class.

The first was an initial impressions piece -- basically just a few sentences saying what she thought of the characters and so on, probably mostly to show the teacher that she had watched the movie.

The second piece just completed was more in depth.  She had to write two mini-essays joined together, each on an opinion she had about the movie and backed up by evidence then linked to her own experiences.

Schools appear to like to use the "PEEL" essay structure style, where the basic thought is Point, Example/Evidence, Explanation, and Link.  But it also appears that different teachers interpret it in slightly different ways.  This blog, for example, which topped my Google search, basically treats it as intro, two paragraphs in the body, and conclusion.  Mulan's English course apparently interpreted the Link at the end not as a conclusion linking back to the intro point but as a link to the writer's personal experiences (meaning that, strictly speaking, it wasn't an essay as it didn't have a conclusion).

Included in the assignment info pack was a example piece (on a different unit topic), which was in the style wanted and was supposedly of "Excellence" level.  Mulan said this was about 470 words long.

This was where things got problematic, because both Mama and I thought the example piece was very badly done.  I thought it only deserved a Pass.

In a nutshell, the huge problem was that the example writing slid off the topic.  It's Point (introduction) stated one thing, while it's Example/Evidence and Explanation sections (body) didn't elaborate on the ideas stated in the Point but instead discussed other ideas.

In other words, the example directly failed to follow the writing structure as required by the assignment question, and (more importantly) failed to be logically persuasive as the body did not give any evidence to support the stated opinion Point.

The writing style was adequately fluent but not brilliant.  The main thing the example had going for it was that it was earnestly nice and positive, giving the conventional (but simple) statements of good teenager-ness.

So, I wondered why the teacher/department/school thought the example was of Excellence level.

Is it that the assignment marking in general is easy?  For Year 10 maybe they are not expecting students to be able to write any better than that?  (But surely they'd want their example to at least answer the question?)

Or is it because this example, while not structurally or logically good, is ideologically appropriate, mouthing the right platitudes?

Or is it that the teacher/assessor simply didn't notice the failed structure/logic?  They were seduced by the decent words and failed to look further.

To be blunt, it may simply be that school teachers generally only have a bachelor's degree, and may themselves not be very sophisticated essayists.  They may have got average passes in their undergraduate university courses, and never really gained the skills of better essay writing.

(In my experience of marking undergraduate university essays at Auckland University, B or C grade passes may have these sorts of weaknesses to some extent; it is often only A students or once one gets to graduate level that this sort of essay writing sharpness is the norm.)

All this got me comparing the school English work versus Science/Maths work that I have seen Mulan completing to date.  My quick initial impression is that, relatively speaking, school Science/Maths requires a higher level of conceptual sophistication, while school English is not conceptually very sophisticated.  This leads me to wonder why the same degree of analytic precision cannot be taught/used in school English as it is in school Science/Maths.

On the other hand, for Mulan the English written work was more time consuming than the Science written assignment (similar word length) just completed.  (Mulan tells me that she finds Science/Maths easier than English.)  This was because, while the Science was conceptually deeper, the English was agonising because of the uncertainty of trying to articulate in words, with explanations, one's initial gut opinions.  It took some longish family discussions for Mulan to get beyond "the movie is boring!", "why?" "because it is!"

So, maybe that is the point?  School English is conceptually simple, because it is challenging enough to get the kids to put into words their thoughts, let alone learn the conceptual skills.  But maybe, just maybe, if they were explicitly introduced to analytical/conceptual tools they would find articulating their thoughts easier.

Anyway, Mulan submitted her piece a couple of days ago, writing about 900-ish words on two of her opinions of the movie.  Mama and I thought it was very good, and definitely solidly in line with university style essay writing.  It'll be interesting to see Mulan's teacher's comments on it.

UPDATE 28/9/2021:  Oops, we were wrong.  Mulan has been given another assignment on My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  This one is a close analysis of particular scenes, to understand how the emotional feel is built up by the camera angle, sound, lighting, etc.  Mulan is not impressed that she is still having to think about this boring movie (!), but otherwise all good.

100ish movies for tween girls

Mulan loves stories, and she learns well through storytelling.

Mostly this is via books, and Mulan is a huge reader (just like her dad).

Up until about a year or so ago we really hadn't bothered too much with either TV or movies.  We don't have a TV, and it's rare that something at the movies jumps out at us as worth seeing.  Anything we want to watch we usually just see on the computer via YouTube or whatever.

But last year we started noticing movies that would suit Mulan.  Last July, when we were in China, Mulan watched her first ever movie in a movie theatre (Spirited Away).  We've since watched a couple more movies in the theatre back here in New Zealand.

Several months ago we got into a new routine of Mulan and me watching a movie together in the evening at home while eating dinner.  Typically we would watch a movie over two or three evenings.  (Miya and Mama would eat dinner together in another room.)

(Yeah, some people might opine that dinnertime should be a time when the family gathers together at the dining table to relax and spend quality time together.  But for us homeschooling families who spend most of the day together sometimes it's nice to get away from each other!)

During the movie we often chat together about what's going on -- laughing at the silly stuff, challenging the nonsense, and discussing the ideas.  Alongside the fun and family closeness, this is also a serious part of Mulan's schooling.  I try to make sure that at some point we talk about the important issues that the movie raises.

With some of the more child-friendly movies Miya joins us too (and occasionally Mama), but typically it's just Mulan and me.  The aim is to challenge Mulan, and with many movies Miya is not yet ready.

A few weeks ago the girls independently decided to write up all the movies they'd watched (or at least as many as they remember!).  They created a spreadsheet, including the movie details, who watched it, when, and their opinions on it.

Today, their list reached 100.  The spreadsheet's a bit too detailed to copy here in full, so I'll just include the approximate date we watched the movie and its name (a few are actually TV series, but that's okay):

30/06/2020	Whale Rider
25/06/2020	Anne of Green Gables
23/06/2020	Anne with an E - part 1
20/06/2020	Oliver Twist
16/06/2020	i am sam
11/06/2020	The Chorus
10/06/2020	A Beautiful Mind
8/06/2020	K-Pax
6/06/2020	Mr Nobody
4/06/2020	Good morning Vietnam
3/06/2020	Awakenings
1/06/2020	Terminator II
30/05/2020	Terminator I
May 2020	Minority Report
May 2020	What's Eating Gilbert Grape
May 2020	Blade Runner
May 2020	Leon the Professional
May 2020	The Man from Earth
May 2020	2001 A Space Odyssey
May 2020	The Usual Suspects
May 2020	Captain Fantastic
May 2020	Dark City
May 2020	Predestination
May 2020	Wadjda
May 2020	Romeo + Juliet
May 2020	Emma
May 2020	The Rise of Skywalker
May 2020	The Last Jedi
May 2020	The Force Awakens
April 2020	The Revenge of the Sith
April 2020	The Attack of the Clones
April 2020	The Farewell
April 2020	The Phantom Menace
March 2020	The Return of the Jedi
March 2020	The Empire Strikes back
March 2020	A New Hope
March 2020	The Tripods TV series
March 2020	Ender's Game
24/03/2020	Inception
March 2020	Being There
22/03/2020	Memento
15/03/2020	The Truman Show
March 2020	Groundhog Day
March 2020	The Sixth Sense
March 2020	Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
March 2020	Fantastic Beasts and where to Find them
March 2020	Amadeus
March 2020	Good Will Hunting
March 2020	The Lion King remake
March 2020	The Lion King
Feb 2020	The Sound of Music
2020	Matrix Revolutions
2020	Matrix Reloaded
2020	The Matrix
2020	Stand by me
Jan 2020	Adams Family
Jan 2020	Frozen 2
2019	Gattaca
2019	The Goonies
2019	The Wizard of Oz
2019	Forrest Gump
Dec 2019	Jojo Rabbit
Dec 2019	Wall-e
2019	Children of Dune TV series
2019	Dune
2019	Edward Scissorhands
2019	The Dead Poets Society
Nov 2019	Yuli-The Carlos Acosta Story
Sept 2019	The Return of the King
Sept 2019	The Two Towers
Sept 2019	The Fellowship of the Ring
July 2019	Spirited Away
2019	The Silver Chair TV series
2019	The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
2019	Prince Caspian
2019	The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
2019	Soul Music
2019	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2
2019	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
2019	Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
2019	Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
2019	Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
2019	Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
2018	Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
2018	Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
2018	The Princess Bride
2018	Pride and Prejudice
2018	Back to the Future III
2018	Back to the Future II
2018	Back to the Future I
2017	E.T
2017	The Eagle Huntress
2017	Billy Elliot
2017	Kiki's Delivery Service
2017	My Neighbour Totoro
2017	Heidi
2017	The Little Princess
2017	Charlotte's Web
2016	The Little Mermaid
2014	Frozen

My birthday pressie

I got a lovely birthday pressie from Miya this week.

For some days previously she'd been secretly doing something on the computer.  It turns out she'd been writing stories -- five four of them -- and then she printed them off for me.  So, I got a seven-page book of original short stories.

Beautiful!

UPDATE: Oops, Mulan just told me that she wrote the fifth story (and she also spell-checked it all).

Term 4

We are now into the first week back in Term 4.

(Yup, even though we homeschool, we still have to follow the school term system.)

For most of the two-week holiday break we were over in Sydney, Australia.  It was my first time there in 25 years, while Mama and the girls had never been there.  I wrote a travel diary while we were away.  I'll probably post it here in the near future.

This term, our big focus (once again) is ballet.  The girls' ballet school will be doing a performance (Alice in Wonderland) in December, and they are learning dances for that.  Mulan is having 8 1/4 hours of lessons each week (four days a week), while Miya is having 4 1/2 hours of lessons (three days a week).  They often do ballet at home, too, including teaching the cousins.

As part of getting the girls more independent, last term we were often catching the bus to ballet rather than taking the car.  At first I went with them in the bus, but they are starting to go on their own now, too.  We bought a basic mobile phone for them to take while out and about.

The girls are still doing their music, though lessons don't start until next week.  Mulan is still learning flute, cello, recorder and ukulele.  Miya is still learning violin, recorder and ukulele.  They practice daily, alternating instruments.

Both Mulan and Miya still love the water, and are continuing with their swimming lessons.  In addition to lessons, we go to the public pools once a week for a fun/training session.

The girls are both still doing gymnastics once a week.

And finally, we have (sort-of) started athletics.  I say sort-of, because it clashes with ballet.  Both girls have chosen to prioritise their ballet, but they squeeze in a bit of athletics when they can.  Miya can attend the last half of Wednesday clubnight as well as some of the Monday coaching session.  Mulan may attend the occasional athletics evening when ballet is not on.

Oh, and our "schooling" stuff?  Yeah, that gets done quickly and easily, squeezed into our day:

For maths, both girls are still doing Khan Academy daily, and both are still about two years ahead of their ages.

Both girls are reading heaps -- both our own books and borrowed books from the library.

I continue to read aloud daily to the girls.  At the moment we are (unsurprisingly) reading Alice in Wonderland.

The girls still practice their typing daily.  Mulan gets up to 80 words per minute while Miya gets up to 60 words per minute.

We watch a YouTube video each day while eating lunch.  This varies depending on what jumps out at us.  Sometimes it is from Crash Course.  Sometimes it is ballet.

Both girls are still having Chinese lessons daily with Mama.  They have now joined Mama's Chinese teaching business as paid assistant teachers.  They work with the preschool students, doing Chinese language games and activities.

Our other subjects are typically done more "unschooling" style.

Book review: The Neverending Story

I finished reading aloud The Neverending Story (Michael Ende) to the girls last night.

It is a complicated, multi-layered, thought-provoking book, which also manages the double-task of being an un-put-down-ably exciting story.  I completely and utterly recommend it to everyone.  It definitely deserves to be on the list of the world's great novels.

If you have watched the movie, but not read the book, then don't be mislead -- the movie is less than half the book, and completely misses the heart and soul of the book.

Giving this sort of open-ended praise for the book, as above, is easy.  What is more challenging is trying to review the specifics of the book.  Saying too much will definitely spoil it for those who haven't read it.  Each idea and aspect of the book builds on previous twists, which really shouldn't be revealed until you have read it.

So, what can I say?

The story is centrally about a boy, Bastian Balthazar Bux, who has an unhappy life.  His mother died, and his father is grieving and distant.  He is fat and awkward, and gets teased by his peers.  While getting chased by bullies he stumbles into a bookshop where, after talking with the owner for a while, he steals an interesting-looking book.  He is late for school and wags class, hiding in the school attic to read the book he stole.

The book Bastian reads is The Neverending Story, an adventure story about a strong, heroic boy, around his own age, who is trying to save his world from destruction.  And thus we, as readers, start to read a book within a book.

And I had better stop there with the retelling.  Any more than that will spoil the amazing twists and turns that happen next.

Except to say that Michael Ende's father was one of Germany's first Surrealist painters.  And that is worth mentioning.  I encourage you to read up on Andre Breton, the founder of Surrealism, and Dada, one of the big influences on Surrealism.  Understanding the reasoning behind these artistic movements will give even more depth to this book.

Alongside reading this book to Mulan and Miya, I have been wanting to recognise that if Mulan were going to school she would have started intermediate school this year.  Amongst other things, I have been trying to think of ways for Mulan to start writing responses to set questions, rather than simply free writing as she typically does.

So, for this book, my first set writing task for Mulan was to get her to write a creative "what happens next" piece.  This was at a point in the book, about halfway, where it was particularly open-ended (I won't say where or what, as it would spoil things if you haven't read it).  Mulan wrote a few pages, very fluently continuing the story as she saw it (Mulan's continuation was very different from the actual story).

This morning, I explained to Mulan that I would now like her to write more of an essay-style piece, reviewing the book and perhaps comparing her story with the actual book.  Mulan looked a bit worried/shocked at the thought of doing this, so she might need some encouragement/nagging.  But I know she has lots of opinions on this, as she was often talking about it as we were reading together.  It will just be a matter of getting her to order her ideas in her head and get them onto paper.  We'll see what happens.

Congratulations Miya

Miya is now independently reading chapter books.

A few weeks ago, I started reading the Animal Ark Pets series of books to Miya and Mulan.  I read the first book, Puppy Puzzle, and got halfway through the second book, Kitten Crowd.

But about a week or so ago, Miya couldn't wait to hear the rest of the story, and so she took the book and finished it by herself.  She then continued on to the next book, Rabbit Race, and beyond.

She also picked up our Nook e-reader, which has the Magic Tree House series on it, and has continued reading those by herself.  (I had previously read up to number 13 in that series to her.)

I think I can safely say that our project to get Miya reading, which we started 15 months ago, has been a success.  (I blogged about it in August last year, with an update this April.)

Update on Miya's reading

We've now been consciously working on Miya's reading for a little over a year.  Last March, when we began, she was a near complete non-reader, recognising maybe only a half-dozen words or so and knowing only some of the letter sounds.

In August, I wrote about where we were at, five months into our project, and the method that we were using for her learning.

In the past eight months, we have mostly followed this same method, with Miya reading out loud to me most days and me reading out loud to her most days.  (We do skip days sometimes if we are too busy with other things!)

So, here is where we are at, right now.

A couple of days ago, we got out our Frances books (some pics of the books in the link below) and Miya started reading out loud to me A Birthday for Frances.  She didn't feel like reading it all in one session (or even two), and she will likely finish the last couple of pages today.  She is probably about 95% correct in her reading of it for the first time.

Notably, she didn't know words like "closet" and "pail" (she struggled to pronounce them and also didn't know what they were -- they are not Kiwi English words).  She also struggled to pronounce names like "Ida", "Albert", and "Gloria".  But with all of these words, after a few repeat occurrences of them in the story she was saying them smoothly.  She continues to sometimes mix up "said" and "and" with each other, as well as mix up "when" and "then" with each other -- that is an ongoing thing with all the books she is reading at the moment, though she almost always self-corrects immediately after saying the wrong word.

But all in all, a pretty good effort.  Sometimes I get Miya to read a book two or three times to solidify the new words, but I don't think we need to do this with these Frances books.

Back in 2013, I wrote about Mulan's experience reading these Frances books.  It seems that Miya, at 6 years 8 months, is reading at about the same level that Mulan was when she was 6 years 3 months.  But Miya started later and is learning faster than Mulan did.

Learning to read

At the moment, our main focus for Miya's schooling is her reading.

When we started consciously working on this in March, when Miya was 5 1/2, she was pretty much completely a non-reader.  I think I am right to say:

1. She could easily recognise and write all the letters.
2. She could copy out words written down, or write words when the letters were told to her.
3. Maybe about half the time she knew individual letter sounds (but no letter combination sounds).
4. She could recognise and write a few words, such as our names and "cat" and dog".

I decided that I would get Miya to read aloud to me each day, for about 15 to 30 minutes, starting with the simplest leveled readers and working our way up.

The leveled readers we chose first were these Reader Rabbit ones:

The first story used only eight different words -- see, I, Sam, look, at, this, book, me -- and each story after that introduced a few more words.

It wasn't long before we got into a routine of reading five stories each day, introducing one new story and dropping one old story.  We tried to read every day, but sometimes missed the occasional day.

This reader series, which we finished last month, was very successful.  Miya really enjoyed the stories (she seems to prefer stories with talking animals), which were funny and interesting, and it jumped her into reading in a way that gave her lots of confidence to continue.

On finishing that series, we have gone through our bookshelves starting with the simplest books and working our way up.  Most of the books we have aren't specifically leveled readers, though we do have quite a few of the Oxford Reading Tree Biff, Chip & Kipper readers, which are excellent.

To give an idea of where we are currently at, yesterday's new book was Put Me in the Zoo.  For the most part Miya read it all correctly, with just a few hesitations and one or two unknown words (she didn't know "violet", and I had to sound it out for her).  I expect that by tomorrow she will be reading it all very smoothly.

What I find interesting about Miya's way of learning to read is that she is still fairly slow at sounding out unknown words.  It is not something that she would immediately do, and it is only something that she is starting to do now as a consequence of me reminding her every time.

She actually seems faster at learning words from me telling them to her.  And it doesn't seem to matter whether new words are told to her directly or whether we spend a bit of time sounding them out together first.  Generally by the third time she has read a new word in a story she can remember it smoothly.

I am not sure what to think of this.  Sometime it is clear that she is just memorising the story and reciting it back to me rather than reading the words.  So, I need to keep changing the books and introducing new stories.  I worry that the way she is learning words will make it difficult for her to learn independently when she encounters new words.  But on the other hand she seems to be progressing very well, learning using her own method.

It is all very different from the way that Mulan learnt to read.

I always felt that I never specifically taught Mulan to read; it just sort of happened.  At no time did we ever work through leveled readers, and nor did I sit alongside her teaching her words.

When Mulan was 5 years 2 months, I wrote here:

I get the sense that Mulan is about 80 to 90% correct in reading most common three and four letter words.  Five letters and up are a bit too long for her—she will generally read them as some three or four letter word that has similar spelling.

By that time Mulan was regularly teaching herself new words by sounding them out independently.  With longer words she still struggled a bit, as she missed parts and so interpreted them as similar sounding shorter words.

Her self-teaching by sounding out words continued, and by the time Mulan was five and a half she was reading simple picture books aloud to two-year-old Miya.  When Mulan was six and a quarter, I wrote here that she could independently read the Frances books.  And when Mulan was six and a half I wrote here that she was independently reading Enid Blyton's The Enchanted Wood.

Two different children, and two very different ways to learn to read.

Mulan’s schoolwork

When I bought workbooks for Miya, I also got some more for Mulan.

For the last few months, Mulan has mostly been doing maths workbooks (and before that, it was science).  So it was time to get back to doing a bit more reading comprehension.  This is what I got:

Previous reading comprehension workbooks we’d done had suggested that Mulan was at, or just slightly ahead of, her age in English.  (This makes sense because she is simultaneously learning Chinese.)  Five months ago, she finally finished the Grade 1 advanced learner book that we had started almost two years ago.

So my guestimate in the bookshop was that the book on the left, which is for seven to eight year olds, would be a little easy but mostly about right.  I guessed the Grade 3 book on the right may be a little too challenging right now, but I expected it would be about right in a month or two, after finishing the first book.

It turns out I was wrong.

When I got home, I showed all the new books to a delighted Mulan and Miya.  They both immediately excitedly said that they wanted to do a page or two of each book every day.  They didn’t want to put any away for later.

I replied to Mulan that I had expected her to complete the easier book first and the other after.  But she wouldn’t hear of that.  So I said okay she is welcome to try the Grade 3 book, and see what she thinks.

It turns out that the Grade 3 book is more Mulan’s level.  For the past week, she has used the first book as an easy warm-up (doing it all completely independently and correctly herself), before turning to the second book for her real lesson.

Each day, with the second book I start Mulan off by getting her to read aloud the study words of the day (she can read them all herself with no trouble).  I then check she understands the tasks (she always does).  She then silently completes the exercises while I help Miya with her work.  At the end of each page, I check Mulan’s work (mostly all right, with a few minor corrections).

When Mulan has done two pages of each of these two books, she then continues with the maths book we bought last month.  She does a page or two of this, which I check at the end.  Our big thing at the moment in this book is getting familiar with times tables.  It is a good challenge for her to calculate them in her head, though after several of them her brain gets tired.

Finally, if she still has enough brain energy, she has a look at the activity pad:

We haven’t done much yet with the multiplication flash cards, except to suggest that Mulan could play some games with them when her friend Yiran comes to our place every day after school for babysitting/play/homework.  Mulan thought that would be a fun idea.

Oh, and at the beginning of each school lesson I read aloud to the girls a page from this How Come? science book, which was a present for Mulan last Christmas:

Miya’s schoolwork

Miya’s schooling situation is very different from Mulan’s at that age.

With Mulan, we started workbooks just before she turned four, and we worked on them for maybe about ten or so minutes a couple of times each week.  She didn’t finish her first workbook until she was four years and two months.

In contrast, Miya finished her first two workbooks on Monday.  She is three years and nine months.

The reason Miya is speeding through these workbooks so fast is that she likes to do school just as often as Mulan does.  This means that she does it every day, for maybe half an hour or so at a time.  (Mulan now does about an hour each day.)

All of this meant that last week I had to go back to the Guangzhou Book Centre bookshop to pick up more book supplies.  (I went on my own and had a wonderful relaxing time there!)  These are the books I got for Miya:

I also discovered that I had stored away in my future resources slash pressie cupboard this book, which I gave to her, too:

Each day this week Miya has been doing a couple of pages from each of these four books … and loving it.  Every morning, she nags at me to start their “school time”.

Is all this extra school time bookwork helping speed along Miya’s learning?

I doubt it.

For one thing, it is all swings and roundabouts.  Gains in one area are offset by losses in other areas.  Soon enough, things will more than likely even up.

For example, one other big difference between Mulan and Miya at that age was that I read to Mulan a lot.  When it was just Mulan and me together, we would often snuggle up together during the day with a reading book (or ten).  It was often an hour or two every day.  That just doesn’t happen with Miya.  In general, the only time I get to read to Miya each day is at night for about ten minutes just before bed.  So, Miya is far less advanced with story reading than Mulan was.  Which means that she is less familiar with letters and words.  She doesn’t yet know how to recite her ABCs (Mulan learnt from Dr Seuss).  And she gets bored quicker with longer stories.

Another big difference is that Miya has had a lot more free time playing with Mulan and other big kids.  This has resulted in her gaining skills and knowledge that would have been completely outside Mulan’s world at that age.  (I am a firm believer that children’s free play is not merely frivolous and fun; it is an essential part of how they learn [blog entry lost].)

And still another big difference is due to personality.  Miya has a much more spatial/sporty/engineering/physical mindset.  She loves screwdrivers and hammers, and likes to “fix” things.  She also likes sitting down and colouring in (which Mulan didn’t).  I suspect it is this background that has given her an advantage when holding her pencil, and has made her more advanced with her writing than Mulan was at that age.

I also doubt our workbook sessions are helping speed along her learning because I have read studies showing that starting children early with schooling does not make them more advanced than their slower-starting peers later on.  The education system in countries where children start school at seven is just as (or more) successful as those where children start at five (or younger).

So, I have no illusions that Miya’s more frequent workbook sessions will make her more advanced.

What we do suits Miya, and it suits our family lifestyle.  But I’m sure it is not better than what we did with Mulan.  (Or worse, for that matter!)

My next post (when I get around to it) will be on Mulan’s current schoolwork.

Miya’s first day at school

Miya started school today.

Yesterday we went to our local bookshop (about 45 minutes away by metro) and picked up our school supplies.  Miya was very excited and she wanted to start immediately.  I said she had to wait until today.

Finally the day arrived, and, after eating and cleaning teeth she trotted off to school all by herself.

A couple of minutes later I joined her in our schoolroom/playroom.  She had already set up her desk space with her books and pencils.  Mulan was sitting next to her, ready and waiting too.

These are the books we used:

Miya did about three pages of each book.  She wanted to do more, but I suggested that we start out a little slower.  She got out a colouring-in book and did a couple of pages of that while Mulan finished her schoolwork.

Yesterday we also got these books for Mulan:

She started reading the Dr Seuss one last night, and I think she read another chapter or two in bed this morning when she woke up.