Tidbit: Wait until your child can read English to teach pinyin

Introduce Chinese in spoken and written character forms as young as possible, but hold off on teaching pinyin until your child reads English well (of course this only applies to native English speakers). The alternate pronunciation for pinyin will be confusing to children who do not read yet.

For example, the word "house" in English blends the "ou" (ignore the silent e for pinyin purposes because there are no silent letters in pinyin). In pinyin, in the equivalent spelling "shou" for hand, you should not blend the o and u -- the two sounds should receive equal weight in the pronunciation.