Can a 7 Year Old Write Her Own Chinese Story?

Many parents come to me and ask, when is the right time for a child to start writing in Chinese? Now, writing is basically expressing one's ideas in written form, and by that definition, so long as the child has the necessary vocabulary, there is no hard and fast rule as to when he or she can start writing. Based on the 2015 Primary Chinese Syllabus (available here https://www.moe.gov.sg/-/media/files/primary/chinese-primary-2015.ashx?la=en&hash=572B4430AE987DAB1992F4C2DEEDBC9780EAC2D6 ), a locally educated primary school pupil will only start writing in paragraph form in Primary 3, and multi-paragraph form (which is the 作文 we are familiar with) in Primary 4. Pupils should only be writing sentences and clauses in Primary 1 and 2.

Now, this arrangement is well-intended. MOE does not want schools to over-test and over-teach pupils. Many of them do not have a strong foundation in Chinese prior to entering primary schools. Some of them will only start to be exposed to the language in Primary 1. Their foundation years (Primary 1 and 2) should be spent focusing on, well, the foundations: character recognition, strokes and sentence structure. These are the building blocks that children need to build their houses and castles in the future. This is why the Primary school textbooks 欢乐伙伴 was designed the way it is, at least based on my understanding when I was part of the writing team.

However, parents and school teachers have a legitimate concern: what about the lead time? If we only start teaching multi-paragraph writing in Primary 4, will pupils be ready for the oft-dreaded PSLE in two years' time? And so the arms race and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) began. Schools start to request pupils write more in Primary 3, some even in Primary 2. Tuition agencies start to prepare them even from Primary 1, cramming in as many flowery phrases 好词好句 as early and as much as possible. Little do we know that this may end up stifling our children's creativity, and causing them to form a warped perception of Chinese writing, thinking that it is merely a regurgitation of flowery phrases and textbook-correct plot and storylines, instead of what it really is, a written expression of one's unique thoughts. No wonder many of our children do not hold Chinese writing in high regard!

I am a firm believer that children and youths are naturally imaginative and creative individuals, capable of conjuring the most fascinating stories if given the right support. We know that is doable in English Creative Writing. But is it really possible in Singapore, where Chinese is not really the lingua franca?

Hence, I decided to experiment with my own daughter, a 7 year old homeschooling girl.

This is the story she wrote, with some guidance from me:

Is it an award-winning story? Obviously not. But is it original? Definitely! I would like to share my process with you, and I hope this helps as you guide your own child to write his or her own original story.

We started off by choosing her favourite Chinese storybook. Her current favourite is this book translated from a Japanese author, Tatsuya Miyanishi 宫西达也.

As Oscar Wilde once said before, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness". Elitist as it may come across, I feel that the learning point here is that imitation is the quickest form to mastery. Hence, the idea is for my daughter to imitate from this great author and come out with something of her own.

Below are some of the passages that she drew inspiration from. Read it and see if you can trace her train of thought.

Yes, we used the same opening sentences and adapted how the dinosaur found the special egg.

As you draw inspiration from the source material, feel free to use phrases that you particularly like, just make sure you add your own twist to it!

Now, remember that you are writing your own story, so feel free to swap objects or ideas around. Did the source material talk about gently caressing the special dinosaur egg? Swap it to talk about the beautiful horse that your character found!

Sometimes, our children will surprise us by the things they take notice of and associate with. I was quite perplexed with how specific my daughter wanted her character and the horse to encounter after crossing the river. Why apple tree? I asked her. That's what I noticed in this page, she answered. The source material did not specify these trees to be bearing apples, but that didn't stop the 7 year old from making that connection.

Some images are just plain powerful and impactful. The image of a prey dinosaur embracing tightly a predator dinosaur out of unconditional love and acceptance will definitely etch on a child's mind. Which is why my daughter chose to incorporate that line into her story.

This whole process took us less than 2 hours, partly because my daughter is quite conversant with the language and I tried to be efficient when guiding her. Choosing to type instead of write certainly helps a lot! Chinese character writing requires a fair amount of fine motor skills and discipline, not to mention physical endurance of their tiny fingers! So do them (and yourself) a favour and sit beside them in front of a computer to type out their story. When your child utters certain ideas in English, use it to teach them what are they called in Chinese (I taught her 非洲 Africa and 雪地 snowland) and search online for terms you may not be familiar with. You learn together with your child!

Before long, your child will be writing his or her story in Chinese and falling in love with it.

What about PSLE? You may ask.

Give me a child who loves to write in Chinese, and I can guarantee him or her a good result in PSLE.