Read With Me! vs Chinese Stories

The goal of the Read With Me! is to embrace your child’s ability to learn to read naturally during your normal picture book reading time. The words are presented dynamically one at a time in large type and stay on the screen long enough for the child to attend to the words and eventually learn to read them. This experience allows your child to learn to read naturally in the same manner that they learn to understand what you say. To begin, just search our library for a physical book you have available to read. Select this book from our library by touching the start icon. Then go to the Settings to allow the reading experience to be uniquely tailored to your child. For each recorded sentence, choose the number of words that your child will see, as well as the duration for each word. The default settings are reasonable for most children, and you will quickly determine the optimal settings that seem appropriate for your child. The printed text that the child sees has typical punctuation and is presented in an easy-to-read type font. When you dictate a sentence from the book, your child can now see the printed words from the book on the screen. This application carries out automated speech recognition under your command. For best accuracy, you will want to read clearly and with emphasis as you usually do with your child. You activate this recognition by touching the screen before you begin reading a sentence from the book, and touch it again when you have finished reading the sentence. The words from the sentence you just read will then appear on the screen. The words will occur one at a time on the screen, and will follow their sequential order in the sentence (even though some of the earlier words in the sentence might be missing). This method of presentation has been proven to be a valid method of reading text, and it allows your child to focus on each word separately at their center of attention. The printed text that the child sees has typical punctuation and is presented in a large easy-to-read type font. Engaging Your Child Your child is usually engaged in your shared reading times, and it offers an ideal opportunity for giving them the opportunity to learn to read naturally. Our observations have shown that children find the written words as part and parcel of shared reading, especially if it is begun early. Our application is more interactive and somewhat more demanding than normal reading but as parents or caregivers you are starting your child’s road to literacy. The screen accompaniment is necessary because the words in picture books are usually difficult to read because of their small size and fancy fonts. In addition, children look at the pictures and not the words. We believe that learning to read in this manner instills in your child a much more positive attitude about reading and will set him or her on the pathway to reading to learn. You can see the books in our library here. http://psyentificmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/ReadWithMeBookList.pdf If you have questions email dominic.massaro at gmail.com For video instructions and demonstrations of the program, see http://psyentificmind.com/videos-2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R3pGTYwa7E&feature=youtu.be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5A6dHp-qMg&feature=youtu.be

If you are learning Mandarin Chinese, our monthly E-books will provide you with the best learning experiences. Now we have two different levels of E-book collection, which are Beginner, Elementary and Intermediate. As for Advanced level, it is coming soon in six months. You can purchase the E-book in accordance with your language proficiency. The language used is carefully selected to correspond to official levels. For texts in Simplified Chinese, the characters are chosen in accordance with New HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi) and YCT (Youth Chinese Test) levels in Mainland China. Our Beginner level corresponds to New YCT level 2&3, Elementary level to New HSK level 3, and Intermediate level to New HSK level 4. As for Traditional Chinese version, the words used are also carefully chosen on the basis of the TOP (the Test of Proficiency-Huayu) standard in Taiwan. Our Elementary level corresponds to TOP elementary level, and Intermediate level to TOP intermediate level. As for Beginner level, each E-book has 5 stories, and each story contains 150~200 Chinese characters. Elementary E-book has 12 stories, and each story contains 250~300 Chinese characters. Intermediate E-book has 12 stories, and each story contains 450~500 Chinese characters. Our Chinese learning E-books have features as followed: 1. Click on a colored words, and we will show you its English definition, pinyin, part of speech, sentences, and its HSK/TOP level. 2. Click on “More,” and you get to know different meanings of the same word. 3. You can save words you don’t know or aren’t familiar with to memorize later. 4. Click on hyperlinks of proper nouns such as place names or celebrity names, and learn more about Chinese geography, culture, and history while reading Chinese stories. 5. Every story comes with full English translation and pinyin. 6. We track your progress. After reading each article, a five-question quiz will test how well your understanding of the story is and will keep a record of your first-time test result. 7. The audio version of each story enables you to listen to standard Chinese and to train your Chinese listening skill.