My First German ABC & Words Workbook.

This workbook is for a child of four to seven and a grown-up doing it together, and the grown-up needs no German. Each instruction to the child is printed in German with the English beneath it. The picture words and model sentences carry a pronunciation hint in square brackets, spelt in English letters with the stressed syllable in capitals, so der Apfel is [dair AHP-fuhl]. A key on page 8 explains the system once: for the sounds English lacks, the hints always write ew for ü, er for ö and hh for the soft ch of ich. Nobody expects the child to read the German alone. You read it aloud, and the child points, says it back, traces and colours.

The alphabet runs four pages to a letter. First comes a tracing page: the capital and the small letter with start dots and numbered arrows, then the letter's own word and two more to trace, so A wie Affe comes with der Apfel and die Ananas. Next is a page to practise and play. For most letters a grown-up says the picture words and the child circles the ones that begin with the letter, then there is a maze, a dot-to-dot, a letter hunt, a matching game or a word jumble. Third is a full-page picture to colour, with a small box beside its word to colour blue for der, red for die or green for das. The fourth page, on the back of the picture, is an optional page to draw or write on. Coloured pencils and crayons work best, and the book warns that felt pens can show through.

Before the letters come ten pages of Schwungübungen, pre-writing swings with a small job each: drive the car to the house, make it rain on the flowers, take the snail round its loops. Then the numbers 1 to 10 to count and trace, 11 to 20 as an optional extra, ten colour words and five shapes. After Z, four more units take the sounds German spells its own way: Ä, Ö, Ü and ß, then Sch, then Ei, Au and Eu, then St and Sp. Eight talk pages are spread through the book, where Lina and Ben say hello and then talk about age, favourite colours, feelings, family, food and toys, and each one ends with the child asking the grown-up the same question back. At the back are a board game, sixteen pairs of memory cards to cut out, a picture dictionary, the answers, a certificate and a last page for the child's own favourite words.