Originally submitted at Childbook.com
My First Chinese Writing Exercise, Simplified Chinese Includes: Illustrations of character origin Stroke order Plenty of pages for character-writing practices
Good beginner hanzi writing book
Pros: Evolution Of Characters, Large Grids, Holes Punched, Stroke Order
Cons: No pinyin, No English
Best Uses: Children, Learning To Write Hanzi, Education
Describe Yourself: Single mom, Elementary chineselearner, Adoptive mom
Was this a gift?: No
I actually photocopy pages out of this for my 7 yr old son to practice his chinese characters on, but the book is made so you can easily tear out the pages and put them in a 3-ring binder as they have pre-made holes.
Each page has a space for the child to write his name and date at the top, and then several drawings of the historical evolution of the character. Then the character writ large with numbers and arrows to show stroke direction, and below, the character written one stroke at a time. Following that are shadow examples the child can trace over, then grids divided into four, and finally squares with no grids, as the child gains confidence. The “squares divided into 4” then “empty squares” is repeated on the back of each page for further practice.
The squares to write in are quite large, compared to many practice books, with the learner drawing the character almost an inch tall.
This has all the most basic characters, and are good simple ones for young students and beginners to start with.
I would have prefered if it had the word in English and pinyin as well, as there is only an image, and the character. I personally know that the image shows “water” but someone who didn’t know may think it is the character for “river” based on the drawing. Perhaps it is only meant to be used in the classroom with a teacher and using the other First Chinese Words materials.
There is pinyin in the table of contents at the start, beside the page number and character, but again, no english equivalent.
I do find that this is a great stand-alone workbook for those learning at home from various materials, and would recommend it.
(legalese)