Fact check: How should children learn to read and write?

A heated debate is raging in elementary school to learn the right method of reading and writing. In some states, the "writing by ear" approach was even banned. In a fact check, the Mercator Institute for Language Promotion and German as a Second Language at the University of Cologne is now providing scientifically sound answers to the question of how children should best learn to read and write in primary school.

According to the IQB education trend, the skills of students in the field of spelling have deteriorated in many federal states over the past few years. There are divided opinions about the reasons for this development. Parents and teachers often blame the “writing by ear” method. Several federal states have focused on spelling and decided not to use the controversial method. Most recently, a study by the University of Bonn heated the mind. The researchers compared various methods used in German classrooms and came to the conclusion that primary school children learn best using the classic so-called primer method of reading and writing.

Christina Cherry
Translation - vacation - or - vacation - german language stack exchange

“Vacation” or “Vacation”

In my German textbook there is a sentence with "vacation".

"Royal vacation in the shadow of castles and palaces."

I consulted my dictionary and found "vacation". I am curious which word of these two is more common according to you.

5 Answers 5

Holidays and vacation can have slightly different meanings.

Employees have vacation (paid time off). Teachers, pupils and non-college students have holidays (vacation, holidays). College students are always busy, they only have lecture-free time (no classes).

Christina Cherry

The conjugation of the german verb - give, german language blog

Present tense

The Present is definitely the most frequently used German tense. You use it for talking about actions that happen while the moment of speaking or when you want retell past happenings. Therefore, I suggest keeping an eye to the Present.

Singular Plural
1 st person I give we give
2 nd person you give – informal
You give – formally
you give – informal
You give – formally
3 rd person he / she / there is they give

1. Please give me the salt?
(Could you pass me the salt, please?)

2. The boss gives instructions all day.
(The boss issues instructions all day long.)

3. We do not provide information about internal matters.
(We don’t provide information about internal affairs.)

4. Martin and Robert give lessons in German.
(Martin and Robert give lessons in German.)

Christina Cherry

Children in the museum

Family exhibition

Age: Recommended for ages 8 and up

Stay: Allow 1.5 – 2 hours

reduced price: up to 17 years

Highlights: Laser parcours, secret laboratory, Morse station, bug searches, coding messages, finding microdots, puzzles

Time travel through the world of espionage

Children quickly find out in the German Spy Museum that agents already existed when there was no cell phone or internet. Modern touchscreens with pictures and maps show that numerous successful spies worked in antiquity and the Middle Ages. In addition, children gain practical espionage experience: How agents used to encrypt their messages can be found out using the Skytale or the encryption disk. The "air agents" that dangle from the ceiling cause astonishment: pigeons equipped with 100-year-old mini cameras (the first "drones"). Since communication techniques have always been very important to agents, children learn how to write their name in Morse code at an interactive station.

Christina Cherry

Children’s Report Germany 2018

A large part of the population in Germany gives the state and society bad testimony in combating child poverty in Germany. Around three quarters believe that this "rather little" or "very little" do to counteract child poverty effectively.

In addition to this inadequate commitment, insufficient parental income through precarious employment and insufficient support for single parents are the most important causes of child poverty in Germany. These are central results of the Children’s Report 2018 of the German Children’s Fund, which was presented by the President of the German Children’s Fund, Thomas Krüger, and the Lower Saxony Prime Minister Stephan Weil in Berlin on Friday.

Christina Cherry

A plate of health for children every day

Living healthy is not only important for the body but also for the soul. How does it look in a child when he is overweight? How well can it concentrate when it comes to school on an empty stomach? Hunger can really hurt. Bad nutrition too.

The German Children’s Fund enables children from families who are affected by poverty to eat good and wholesome meals. Because as a child, those who do not experience what a healthy diet is and how good it can taste will hardly be able to make up for it as an adult.

Christina Cherry

Welcome to the website of the Federal Foreign Office

German citizenship law is fundamentally based on the so-called parentage principle. This means that German citizenship is acquired primarily from the parentage of a German parent. In addition, since 2000, domestic and foreign parents can also be acquired.

The reasons for acquiring German citizenship are as follows:

Acquisition through conjugal birth

Marital children who were born between 01/01/1914 and 31/12/1963 only acquired German citizenship through their German father.

Marital children of a German mother, who were born after 01.01.1964 and before 31.12.1974, acquired German citizenship if they otherwise would have become stateless.

Christina Cherry
German courses for children and teenagers in Germany

German for children and teenagers

The Humboldt Institute offers German courses for children and young people at numerous locations in Germany and Austria. The youngest students between the ages of 7 and 13 belong to the children’s age category. At Schloss Wittgenstein we welcome children from the age of 7 and offer accompanying German courses for parents. We welcome students between the ages of 14 and 18 in the course locations for young people.

Year-round German courses for children and teenagers (365 days a year)

The German courses for children and teenagers are offered all year round in Bad Schussenried and Lindenberg. There are numerous start dates to choose from and allow a flexible course duration. Depending on the age group, the German courses are offered with 25 lessons (children) or 30 lessons (teenagers), each lasting 45 minutes.

Christina Cherry

German Christmas carols lyrics - colorful

German Christmas carols – texts for children

Christmas carols lyrics are omnipresent

Every year – so it is said – the Christ child comes. But not only the Christ child is a must at Christmas time, too the most beautiful Christmas carols belong to. These have a long tradition because Christmas carols have been written and sung in the churches of Europe since the early Middle Ages. Today at Christmas time you can hear Christmas songs almost everywhere on the streets, on the radio and still in the church.

Children’s Christmas

Since the song lyrics are often not very difficult or long in relation to the holiday, Christmas carols are suitable for kindergarten. In kindergarten, children learn Christmas carols quickly and have a lot of fun singing happy songs together. German Christmas carols are also sung later in primary school or in music lessons at higher levels. The older the children get and English is added as a school subject, the more likely they are to have fun when Christmas carols are sung in English. Famous examples are "Jingle Bells" or "We wish you a merry christmas".

Christina Cherry

German Children’s Cancer Aid – giving hope to children with cancer

The German Children’s Cancer Aid Foundation was founded in 1996 by the German Cancer Aid. It provides help and advice to those affected and is committed to fighting childhood cancer nationwide.

Cancer in children

When a child gets cancer, the shock is deep. In Germany, around 2,000 children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer each year. The positive news: The chances of cure for children with cancer in Germany are very good today – 4 out of 5 children with cancer can be cured.

There is hardly any area of ​​cancer medicine in Germany that has achieved as good success as combating cancer in children. The German Cancer Aid has a significant share in this development:

Christina Cherry