Reading and Writing

Reading and Writing in Japanese

Students at Maloney are exposed to all three types of writing beginning in pre-kindergarten. In third grade, students formally study how to read each of the 46 hiragana characters.

There are three types of characters used in Japan: Kanji, Hiragana, and Katanana

Hiragana Chart

Katakana chart

Hiragana Kakijun (Stroke Order): Here

Hiragana Song1

Hiragana Song 2

あいうえお Kakijun Video

See a whole hiragana chart: here.

You can click on the characters to hear the sounds and learn the stroke order. Practice writing them on a piece of paper, or ask your teacher for special boxed writing-practice pages.

• Print out hiragana writing practice pages: here

• Play a Hiragana game: here!

• LAY DRAG AND DROP HIRAGANA CHART! See how quickly you can drag the hiragana to their correct spots! Click here.

• HIRAGANA game - see if you can choose the right hiragana to complete the line of the chart! Click here.

• Here is a beautifully done article about writing in Japanese and how it has changed with technology, etc. Lots of pictures! Click here.

• • Japanese-English Online Dictionary: HERE.