I will be forever grateful to our fabulous K teacher from the MI program we were in for telling me about the importance of "attaching" to the characters. This teacher - she was originally from HK, had gone to university in Taiwan, and then did a bilingual education Master's degree here in the U.S. She had raised a son to the age of 10 at that time. So I also felt like I was getting really great parenting advice, too.
This teacher explained to me the developmental stages and changes ahead for the years of K, 1 and 2, or ages 5 to 6 to 7, and beyond. She told me about the idea of "attachment" to the characters. This is not about stroke order or handwriting quality. Parents (and non-experts) seem to lump "writing" all into one thing. But this is where the mindset for phonetic languages is totally different for the mindset for character-based languages. (And this doesn't really apply to Japanese, because I've been told by Japanese and students of Japanese that they also have a phonetic system that they regularly use in everyday writing, which is not how "Bo Po Mo Fo" is used at all.)
That program we were in did not start teaching Pinyin until the end of 2nd grade. We are now in a different program, which employs a different model and a different philosophy toward Pinyin, which gets taught starting in 1st grade.
I did not fully grasp what "attaching" meant back then. But I am ever grateful. Sure, I have my own experience to match this idea to. I get it. But I was a kid. I did not know what my parents were making me do. And they were not professional language teachers or linguists. They were just teaching us the way they were taught, as best they could without the environmental supports.
Attaching to the characters is a very real thing. After much hard work these last 3 years of K-2, I am safely reassured that my child has attached. She uses Pinyin, but it is not a crutch. Now the trick will be to keep using it, but to leave more and more of it behind during reading. But I am not facing a situation wherein my child uses Pinyin all over the place when she is trying to write a few sentences in class.
Attachment also means that she does not see writing the characters as a total chore. In fact, to write something out in Pinyin and get the right tone mark can often be more of a chore because she is less sure of those tone marks. So then she has to use a dictionary, as it is. If she's going to grab the dictionary, then she might as well write the character. No need for Pinyin. Excellent.
Furthermore, she is far more skilled and confident than when she was 5 and 6 years old in deconstructing characters with her eye, which makes it faster for her to write. This is why slaving away over stroke order when you are younger (ages 5-7) can make a huge difference at age 8. And yes, believing in the idea of attaching to the characters.
When we started in this new program, 2 months after 2nd grade had started, my child was "behind" in pinyin. But the lead Chinese teacher, being from Taiwan, was excellent, understanding, and supportive. From the first meeting, she asked me my opinion about Pinyin. She immediately assumed that I would have an opinion and wanted to let me know that she would be respectful of what was probably a preference away from Pinyin.
Given the already excellent advice I had received from our K teacher, I knew what to ask for. Had I not had that advice, I would have asked our 2nd grade teacher for more of her thoughts. But since this was put as a dialogue for both of us, added to the fact that she could be assured that my ultimate goal was one that was mutually understood, which was in favor of the characters and no Pinyin, then I felt so thankful. The teacher said that she wouldn't grade my child too hard on Pinyin during the weekly tests. She was aware and sensitive to a child's perception of teacher feedback at this young age. She explained that the school had a different approach, mostly for the non-Chinese-proficient parents, that of teaching Pinyin earlier. But this had mixed reception amongst the Chinese parents. So she was trying to accommodate. She knew that if she came down too hard on my child, then my child would feel the pressure to "achieve" in pinyin. Since this kind of thing is very new to a lot of Chinese teachers (think about it - who goes into teaching Chinese with the idea that Pinyin has to be mastered?), she wanted to know my opinion as the parent and as a parent who had studied Chinese.
Turns out, my child did have a lot of anxiety over Pinyin that year. She immediately perceived how she was "behind" all the other kids on this front. She had no idea what was going on here, in addition to her emerging English skills. So I can totally see how parents freak out at this stage and wonder if dual immersion is even for them. Pinyin introduces another level of complexity, one that I did not know when we started because I simply didn't know how it worked.
But now I get it. However, along with the classroom teacher's support, I continuously told my child to relax about Pinyin, that it was no big deal and getting it wrong was not at all a critical matter. Meanwhile, what was more important was to learn the characters. With patience, I told my kid, she would gradually pick up the patterns for Pinyin. No need for extra practice.
The focus on "extra" then, was what it has always been - the character writing. And now, I see what "attachment" looks like, and I can breathe a lot easier.
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