The other day, after we came back from visiting my daughter's future kindergarten, she was overjoyed.
"Kindergarten is so much fun!" she told me. "My new school is much better than my old school."
I was relieved to hear that she liked her new school, but I was also a little confused. I murmured, "I thought you liked your preschool."
She was still in her own happy little world and shouted:
"No more writing in kindergarten!"
That was when I realized that my soon to be five-year-old daughter, who often complains that writing is tricky, was somehow under the illusion that once she graduated from preschool, she would never need to practice writing again.
Maybe all kids go through this stage and then eventually stop complaining when writing becomes natural. I wasn't actually worried about her English writing. There are only 26 letters, and she is already getting most of them right. She also shows a strong interest in learning new vocabulary, so I know she will be fine.
But what will she feel when she starts learning Chinese?
I am Taiwanese, and Chinese is my native language. I hope my daughter will speak Chinese comfortably enough to maintain a close relationship with my Taiwanese family, and maybe one day, she will be able to explore Taiwan by herself, have her own adventures, and feel that the gift of a second language has made her world a little bigger. However, my husband is a native English speaker, so it is always a challenge to get my daughter to speak Chinese with me, not to mention writing.
Chinese writing is not simple. There are thousands of commonly used Chinese characters. I learned Traditional Chinese in Taiwan, and each character can have many complicated strokes. For example, my own name has three characters with 4, 11, and 16 strokes. For many words, even I have forgotten how to write them after not using them frequently for years.
This is the challenge that inspired me to start TracingMagic.
For me, helping my daughter learn Chinese is a gift from me to her, the one I hope she will look back on and cherish someday. The gift probably will not be perfect, but I am giving it my personal touch.
TracingMagic is my experiment in making writing practice more fun, more engaging, and more personal. I know that "writing is tricky," as my daughter often says, and I hope TracingMagic can add a little color to it.
This is only the beginning. I hope to keep enriching TracingMagic with new ideas, real parenting experiences, and feedback from families and teachers who are also helping children learn to write.