Welcome to Tadoku Tree House!
Tadoku Tree House is an online library that specializes in graded readers for early Japanese language learners. It was initially opened in 2015 for internal purposes, but has since been revamped by Smith College’s Japanese language department for a broader global audience.
The website promotes Tadoku (extensive reading), which became a significant element of Smith’s Japanese language curriculum in 2007 (Takahashi 2017, 2018). Tadoku is an easy and accessible way for learners to sharpen reading skills such as character recognition, reading speed, and passive vocabulary acquisition, as well as to develop reading strategies for navigating texts and images for overall comprehension.
Since Spring 2017, Smith College students enrolled in all levels of Japanese have used the grammar and vocabulary they have encountered in class to create their own original books for a broader Tadoku practitioner like you. The Smith College Japanese program’s collection of “books by learners”, which can be accessed through this website, is entirely composed of their work.
Tadoku Tree House is a proud and affectionate nod to the Japanese language learning community at Smith College. We hope all learners who enjoy their work, regardless of their own age, background, and/or identity, will come to view themselves as Nakama, fellow Tadoku practitioners, in their shared pursuit of Japanese proficiency.
The levels of books were referred to the guidelines provided by NPO Tadoku. However, some books may contain words, Kanji, and grammar that are not suitable for the suggested level, as authors were encouraged to use the Japanese knowledge and skills that they learned in class. Even so, authors creatively and thoughtfully made their books as understandable as possible by going through a peer review process to help you finish reading them with ease!
For your reference, each Smith Japanese course covers:
|
Textbook |
Lesson |
Course |
Course＃ |
| Genki vol.1 | Lesson 1-8 | 1st year Japanese | JPN110 |
| Genki vol.1&2 | Lesson 9-16 | 1st year Japanese | JPN111 |
| Genki vol.2 | Lesson 17-23 | 2nd year Japanese | JPN220 |
| Tobira | Lesson 1-7 | 2nd year Japanese | JPN221 |
| Tobira | Lesson 8-15 | 3rd year Japanese | JPN301 |
| No textbook | n/a | 3rd year Japanese | JPN302 |
| No textbook | n/a | 4th year Japanese | JPN350/351 |
Please refer to the textbook website for Genki and Tobira for the grammar, Kanji, and vocabulary introduced in each lesson.
All copyrights are reserved by the authors of the books.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Tadoku Book Project ✖️ Design Thinking
This Tadoku Book project is being created with an awareness of “connections” while incorporating the Design Thinking approach (Takahashi 2023).
What are the connections? For example…
- Own Japanese language learning experience and Japanese language skills
- Textbook content, vocabulary, grammar, kanji, conversational expressions, etc.
- Experience in reading a lot of stories and books
- Classmates, friends, family, pets, etc.
- Your thoughts, ideas, interests
- Experiences, precious memories, etc.
- Hobbies and special skills
- Things you have learned or are learning in other classes
- Readers, Japanese language learners
- Books were created inSmith College Design Thinking classroom (created remotely during the pandemic), the work will be presented to the class twice during the draft stage, with students providing feedback and comments to each other. Although some students work alone, we encourage students to work in groups of two or three.
The instructor checks for errors in vocabulary, grammar, expressions, spelling, etc., and basically supports the work until completion while respecting the author’s point of view and intention, as well as readability, understandability, and interest for the readers. In order to maintain as much as possible the authenticity of the learner’s current Japanese language ability and individual Japanese style, we do not perform detailed grammar checks or rewrites from a native speaker’s point of view. While respecting the learner’s individuality, we strive to create a “new expressive space” from both verbal and non-verbal perspectives, providing learning and encouragement for both the writer and reader.
Happy reading!
- Takahashi, A. (2017). “Nurturing Diversity and Richness of Mind: Creating Original Graded Readers through Extensive Reading”, The 23th Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum Proceedings.
- Takahashi, A. (2018). “Yomu Yomu Beginners! Creating Tadoku books in the First Year, First Semester Japanese for Other Japanese Learners”, The 2018 International Conference of Japanese Language Education.
- Takahashi, A. (2023). Tadoku Books by Students: Learner-Inspired Extensive Reading Materials Utilizing the Diversity of Japanese Learners and Their Language Use, American Association of Teachers of Japanese Spring 2023 Conference.
- The d. School Stanford University (2004, 2018). Design Thinking Bootleg
Atsuko Takahashi
Senior Lecturer, Smith College
Any questions? Please contact us at tadoku@smith.edu