Now that I've got you "hooked" wondering what I mean by memorization being the wrong way to go...
It isn't to say that your brain won't "memorize" something - eventually. But it's more about how you go about doing it. And when it comes to your kid... well, rote memorization really is boring.
What you need to do is think about it as imprinting on the brain. How do you imprint successfully? Engagement and making associations are the best approaches. You might say, well, a language immersion program is supposed to be a high quality type of engagement. That is true. It's better than "learning in translation" wherein the teacher speaks English (or the native tongue of the students in class) and tells you "this" is what x means, or "this" is what y means...
But the critical piece of that immersion experience is engaging with a native speaker to find and create meaning in that moment of engagement. You can do more at home to increase the amount of time you are spending imprinting. In the old days, people listened to tapes. These days, you can do Child Road on the iPad.
So this is for listening/speaking engagement. I would also argue that reading/writing engagement requires copying characters. But some might object to this being rote. I disagree. Writing characters is a foundational engagement experience with the Chinese language.
Whether you look at it from a cultural perspective - the role of calligraphy - or from a brain imprinting perspective, this engagement experience is what makes learning and knowing the Chinese language at its core, in the same way that English speakers/writers might consider the experience of the typewriter or the QWERTY keyboard, or even the level of revere Spelling Bees have despite SpellCheck programs.
I look at my child's K-2 period and I am grateful to those few voices - Chinese mommies - who helped me feel all right in pushing my child to write every day and follow the correct stroke order. After all, this is what I grew up with. But like many parents, I did wonder if this was cruel torture. How tough should I be with something like stroke order? Our K teacher advised that it was very important, but not important to get the strokes very pretty. Plus, it was okay to mess up quite a bit. Developmentally, the hand-eye coordination and fine motor movements were still developing, so don't push too hard. But by First Grade, those motor skills are developing quite well and very quickly. So you want to capture that developmental stage and imprint the practice of writing (copying characters) and doing the correct stroke order.
This is another testament to the value of the Jinan University ZW Books. Daily character practice is built into each daily assignment. No need for teachers or parents to negotiate what, how much, and when to do this. A bunch of highly insightful professional linguists have already figured it out for us.
At First Grade, I had to spend a week overcoming the whining and melodramatic tears, but once that week was over, all has been good since. Through the course of 2nd grade up to now at the finish of 3rd, I can witness the ease and speed with which my child writes characters by hand. This ease and speed allows her to tolerate the difficulty of Chinese literacy more easily. It also allows her to "see" new characters more quickly because she has learned to deconstruct them. This is the genius of following the correct stroke order. Your brain eventually catches on to what is happening. But you cannot figure it out by passive engagement.
Looking at flash cards trying to memorize characters now seems so futile, in retrospect. During the K-1 years, I made a lot of flash cards, but we hardly used them. When I was a kid, we never made flash cards. I get that it's a common practice. But if you have limited time, I would suggest character writing practice is a much better use of your time.
Next up, I'll post about making associations.
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