Gil Posted August 22, 2023 Share Posted August 22, 2023 I'm looking for something for German phonics and then a few quality basal readers (something that'd be used in 1st-3rd grade). For Phonics, I'm open to any phonetic-based resource that goes up to multisyllable words and includes some multi-paragraph reading passages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted August 22, 2023 Share Posted August 22, 2023 1 hour ago, Gil said: I'm looking for something for German phonics and then a few quality basal readers (something that'd be used in 1st-3rd grade). For Phonics, I'm open to any phonetic-based resource that goes up to multisyllable words and includes some multi-paragraph reading passages. German is much more phonetic than English - not as 1:1 as Spanish, but much more straightforward than English. My kids all learned to read phonetically in English, Spanish, and German pretty much simultaneously - if they can already read and decode, they just need the pronunciation of German letters and graphemes. First graders are usually shown an "Anlauttabelle" - which looks something like this: Those are most of what you need to know - but of course native speaking kids already know the correct sounds, and just need the letters to go with them. A German curriculum will also assume you know this and will have zero explanation of what the actual sounds are (my kids used one, Kunterbunt Fibel, at their German Saturday School when they were in 1st grade). As you can see above, it's just G is for 'fork' - well, they know it's a Gabel, and what sound the G makes in that. And V is for bird, and they know that's "Vogel" and that the V sounds like and English 'F', not an English V. The main vowels (AEIOU) sound like the Spanish ones, but unlike Spanish there are short and long versions (literally, just say the same sound for a shorter or longer time, not like in English where 'long' vowels are mostly unrelated diphthongs). ü is like the French 'u' (a sound we don't have in English), R is like the French R. W of course is like English V, V is like English F, Z is like 'TS', J is like English Y; a few different letters (S, D, T, G) have different sounds depending on if they are at the start or end of a syllable. Like English, vowels are short before a double consonant. The vowel combos - EI is like English long I, IE is like English long E, AU is like English OW, EU is like English OI, but softer. A beginning text for non-natives will have a much more thorough explanation of the correct sounds (though I usually think they do a very poor job of explaining it; I like for them to hear and repeat the native sounds). But once you know the sounds, the actual reading is very straightforward. They don't need things like basal readers. When I've taught kids that can already read in another language, I just tell them the letter/sound stuff and have them read regular books; it's never been a problem phonetically (they can sound out all the words even if they don't know what they mean yet). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Posted August 22, 2023 Author Share Posted August 22, 2023 16 minutes ago, Matryoshka said: A beginning text for non-natives will have a much more thorough explanation of the correct sounds (though I usually think they do a very poor job of explaining it; I like for them to hear and repeat the native sounds). But once you know the sounds, the actual reading is very straightforward. They don't need things like basal readers. When I've taught kids that can already read in another language, I just tell them the letter/sound stuff and have them read regular books; it's never been a problem phonetically (they can sound out all the words even if they don't know what they mean yet). Thanks for this! However, I'm only looking for Native materials and I want the basal readers for graduated reading practice because it's my understanding that German textbooks tend to be (used to be?) well put together with a good mix of folktales, poems, fables and factual articles--which sounds ideal for reading practice and knowledge acquisition at the early stages. Also, after everything we went through with Spanish (and Japanese) I'm drawn to leveled compilations of reading material. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted August 22, 2023 Share Posted August 22, 2023 1 hour ago, Gil said: Thanks for this! However, I'm only looking for Native materials and I want the basal readers for graduated reading practice because it's my understanding that German textbooks tend to be (used to be?) well put together with a good mix of folktales, poems, fables and factual articles--which sounds ideal for reading practice and knowledge acquisition at the early stages. Also, after everything we went through with Spanish (and Japanese) I'm drawn to leveled compilations of reading material. Yeah, I actually had something exactly like that - a 3rd grade reader. It was indeed a mix of all those things. I thought I still did and was going to offer to mail it to you, but seems it got donated to the Saturday School library. But even so, the reason it got donated is that I never used it. Although I did have access to zillions of other German books so yeah, it might've been decent if I'd been looking for something all-in-one. Now I'm bummed I gave it away! I went and looked on German Amazon, and can't find anything like that anymore. Continental Books sells lots of materials including graded readers but you have to get one book at a time. I always like using fairy tales or other books that they already know the story of to get going with reading - it helps a lot with vocabulary acquisition from context. Are both your boys wanting to do this, or just one? What are their goals? I think Duolingo isn't that useful for most young learners (the number of kids whose parents told me they'd done 'a year of Duolingo' and retained nothing... ), but your boys, who are serious language learners and already have experience with more than one foreign language, might find it a decent jumpstart as an intro to the sounds and basic grammar. As a multilingual adult, I've found it very useful for that. I'm working with an adult who used it to start and am working with her on polishing her accent and getting conversational. But it got her through the basics so we didn't have to start completely from scratch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clarita Posted August 22, 2023 Share Posted August 22, 2023 My friend says her son who is in first grade in Germany says they don't have a reading textbook, because she said what @Matryoshka says it's not that hard to figure out. The teacher might send home some papers with stuff to read. There isn't extensive phonics stuff like there is in English. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted August 22, 2023 Share Posted August 22, 2023 I found a few early reading books and workbooks on Amazon. They seem to start right out with multisyllabic words but with syllables in alternating colors--so, one syllable written in red letters, the next in blue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted August 22, 2023 Share Posted August 22, 2023 Ex: https://www.amazon.com/dp/3619044627/?coliid=I30MUB7ZYX5IYF&colid=3OVFPK39V9F35&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted August 22, 2023 Share Posted August 22, 2023 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B118F2GB/?coliid=I3MKOP2GIM2HZH&colid=3OVFPK39V9F35&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it https://www.amazon.com/dp/3619141703/?coliid=I35TGACNPUGK8B&colid=3OVFPK39V9F35&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it https://www.amazon.com/dp/3619141711/?coliid=I2Z51WRMP08U9I&colid=3OVFPK39V9F35&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted August 22, 2023 Share Posted August 22, 2023 https://www.amazon.com/dp/3619044635/?coliid=I14M5B7PE0DTJE&colid=3OVFPK39V9F35&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gil Posted August 24, 2023 Author Share Posted August 24, 2023 On 8/22/2023 at 1:47 AM, Matryoshka said: Yeah, I actually had something exactly like that - a 3rd grade reader. It was indeed a mix of all those things. I thought I still did and was going to offer to mail it to you, but seems it got donated to the Saturday School library. But even so, the reason it got donated is that I never used it. Although I did have access to zillions of other German books so yeah, it might've been decent if I'd been looking for something all-in-one. Now I'm bummed I gave it away! I went and looked on German Amazon, and can't find anything like that anymore. Continental Books sells lots of materials including graded readers but you have to get one book at a time. I always like using fairy tales or other books that they already know the story of to get going with reading - it helps a lot with vocabulary acquisition from context. Are both your boys wanting to do this, or just one? What are their goals? I think Duolingo isn't that useful for most young learners (the number of kids whose parents told me they'd done 'a year of Duolingo' and retained nothing... ), but your boys, who are serious language learners and already have experience with more than one foreign language, might find it a decent jumpstart as an intro to the sounds and basic grammar. As a multilingual adult, I've found it very useful for that. I'm working with an adult who used it to start and am working with her on polishing her accent and getting conversational. But it got her through the basics so we didn't have to start completely from scratch. Do you know the German phrase for such a school book? I'd like to know what to search for on websites. I know that a lot of schools are moving away from printed books, but it's important to me that I have traditional books. I'd like to be able to compile a 1st-4th grade set of readers auf Deutsch. They're for me. I've been interested in learning German fluently for a while and I'm currently toying with the thought of teaching Amiga to speak and read German when she's older. Duolingo doesn't suit our purposes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 This looks interesting (it's a graded series) but I can't find a lot of information about it: https://www.amazon.com/Lese-u-Lernprofi-3/dp/3619346208/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?crid=2STMPN3ZVCU6J&keywords=koppensteiner&qid=1692844469&sprefix=koppensteiner%2Caps%2C274&sr=8-5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmeilaen Posted September 15, 2023 Share Posted September 15, 2023 I have used Lies mal with my youngest. The booklets are well done and get more difficult as you go along. We also liked Der rote Gockel, Schau in die Welt, and Der Sonne Licht. Our very first "Fibel" was Tobi. All my five children learned reading with that. We also used the cursive workbooks later and some of the spelling workbooks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted September 19, 2023 Share Posted September 19, 2023 On 8/23/2023 at 9:16 PM, Gil said: Do you know the German phrase for such a school book? Fibel. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penderwink Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 Try ABC der Tiere to get started. They have this useful website for audios and seeing pages etc which might be useful as a non-native speaker. https://lernsoftware.mildenberger-digital.de/landing-abc1-1407-90/0/#/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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