Co-Curricular Classes for Kids Taught in Chinese available online and in Singapore

Have you considered any CCAs (aka co-curricular or extracurricular activities…) which are taught in Mandarin Chinese, to give your children more language exposure?  This can be a much cheaper alternative to formal Chinese tuition, and it might be a lot more fun for the child too. 

We’ve never in our house faced an “I-hate-Mandarin” attitude (touch wood), but I like to think that predominantly my kids only use the language for activities which they feel are fun, and not pressurised or stressful. We’ve opted for taking classes like piano, cooking or sport with Mandarin coaches to let them absorb the language in every day situations outside of the formal school classroom. There’s a lovely post by Hands on Fun Chinese, which is an ‘Immersion Parent Guide to Supporting Chinese‘, and it recommends extracurricular activities as a top strategy, and I agree it’s powerful (and fun).

Our family has engaged in several great Chinese taught non-academic classes over the years we have lived in Singapore – and now in a post-COVID world, we’ve even had the opportunity to explore some special online classes too which are offered globally.  Here’s a hit list of a few ideas to get your creative juices going.

Art classes taught in Chinese

In Singapore: again, the local Community Club’s often have classes in Chinese Calligraphy for children, which are taught fully in Chinese.  Check out OnePA for course listings and locations.   Another great option which my elder daughter has done is Hokkien Huay Kuan Arts and Cultural Troupe, who have recently branched out into offering Calligraphy
& Chinese Painting  classes too, in addition to the amazing suite of drama classes.

Another one to consider (which we haven’t tried) is Moyuan Culture Education Centre which offers Chinese Calligraphy, Chinese Painting and Creative Art classes.

Online: Bilin Academy is our go-to option here, as they have a wide range of online art classes taught solely in Mandarin.  Whilst it’s a US-based service, they have plenty of classes available for Singapore timezones. Topics range from learning about fashion design from top New York Fashion Designers (who speak fluent Mandarin), through to drawing Disney Princesses, or doing a watercolour class on painting Classical Chinese poetry.  Classes are affordable at ~US$15-20 per hour, with max 5 students in a class.  We have enjoyed every course we’ve done through Bilin Academy, and hope to do many more.

Another great option we’ve enjoyed online is Language Art Fun, which is more suitable for kindergarten age children, as it a similar price to Bilin Academy. The focus is more on crafts and simpler drawing, which always includes a literary element too.

Artwork done by my daughter from the online “Paint the Poem” classes through Bilin Academy
Art and craft from my kids doing the Language Art Fun Classes – usually with a topical theme, like CNY or Christmas, etc.

Dance Classes taught in Chinese

In Singapore: Singapore Chinese Dance Theatre offers ballet and contemporary dance classes for children of all ages, taught in Mandarin.  Don’t be fooled by their website address – whilst this is also hosted at the Hokkien Huay Kuan Association building, it’s totally separate from the Hokkien Huay Kuan Arts and Cultural Troupe, and their waiting list isn’t quite as long (thankfully!).  Classes include western ballet, but also Wushi, Chinese Classical Dance and Chinese Ethnic Dance.  At the end of each year, students have the opportunity to perform in the Theatre’s annual dance showcase, which for many (parents included) is the highlight of the year!

Online: Chiwawa Fun have online classes for hip hop and tap dance. They have ongoing classes, and if you don’t see one advertised which fits your schedule, ask them to start one. They’re based in Hong Kong, so it’s a great fit timezone wise for families Singapore. We know one family who even thought about having a hip hop class as a birthday party event, it’s that fun! Lots of choreography to develop your child’s dance abilities, all the while learning Mandarin. Lah Lah Banana readers can benefit from a 10% promo discount at checkout using LAHLAHBCHIWW10.

Picture courtesy of Singapore Chinese Dance Theatre ….. I wish parents were allowed to take photos inside the classroom! That’s the one thing which I really disliked about these classes – they were always behind closed doors, with no windows to peak through!

Drama Classes taught in Chinese

In Singapore: It took us 1 year on a waiting list to finally get a slot at Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan Arts and Cultural Troupe! Their weekly enrichment classes focus on speech and drama, and also broadcasting courses for older children, and it’s not an overstatement to say they’re wildly popular.  For children who are particularly keen and talented, there is an opportunity to join their Cultural Troupe for live performances at various venues.

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) also offer a Bilingual Chinese Drama Class, which again is usually oversubscribed. We haven’t tried this one, but we’ve heard it’s also good.

Online: We did a Speech and Drama class through Bilin Academy which was excellent. Bilin is a small school based in US, and they really vet their teachers and providers well, so you can be sure to be paying for quality whatever you take through them. This is also where we’ve taken several terms of art classes, which have been beautiful.

Picture of the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan Troupe performing at the opening of the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre in 2017. Picture from Straits Times.

Music classes taught in Mandarin

In Singapore:  most of the local Community Clubs have Chinese Children’s Orchestra and Choirs, many of which are free to sign up to, provided the child has an existing musical background (eg if they can already read music or play another instrument, then they may be able to learn some of the Chinese instruments like Guzheng 古箏 or Erhu 二胡).  Enquire at your local Community Club, or look online at OnePA . Note that often not all the options are listed online, so you are better to talk to the Club / Centre in person. One great thing about these groups is that they often have multiple performance opportunities at local community events, such as Chinese New Year dinners, or Hawker Centre openings, etc.

For more specific musical instruments with one-to-one classes, consider websites like the Happy Pianist or Piano Hub, which match students with private tutors. You can input as one of your requirements that the tutor speaks predominantly in Mandarin. We found two great tutors through there.

Online:  we use VIP Pielian for online practice sessions bi-weekly for my daughters to support their regular piano classes.  It’s an intriguing service based in mainland China, and good way for a child to clock up the practice, whilst chatting in Chinese.  I’ve done a more detailed post about how VIP Pielian service works.  Classes are about US$6 per 30 minutes, for one-to-one classes, and multiple instruments are offered.

Classes are done online – using a special camera which clips to the iPad, so the teacher can see the child’s hands. The VIP Peilian app is fully in Chinese.

Sports Classes taught in Chinese

In Singapore:  We found out about gymnastics in Chinese by accident!  SGActive provides cost competitive Gymnastics classes (for both girls and boys, which is rare and great!) at the Bishan Sports Hall, which coincidentally was run by mainland Chinese speaking coaches.   Since then, we’ve discovered that many other ActiveSG courses (such as basketball, athletics) run island wide have Chinese-speaking coaches.  You might even be able to find a private one-on-one swimming classes with Chinese coaches, etc. 

If gymnastics is your thing, we’ve also heard that at The Junior Gymnastics Training Centre there are also Chinese speaking coaches for gymnastics and wushu, which could be another good alternative for those living around Bukit Timah.

Bishan Sports hall is a tremendous facility for learning gymnastics – it’s actually where the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics were held. I took this photo during one of the initial classes. The children literally have the whole gym space to work with, and parents can sit in the auditorium-style seats and watch it all.

Coding Classes taught in Mandarin

Online: Without doubt, coding classes in Mandarin have been our favourite of all online classes. It’s just a class type which lends itself so naturally to doing it via the screen, especially since computers needs to be involved anyway. Chiwawa, in collaboration with First Code Academy, offer classes in Scratch, Roblox, and Minecraft from beginner through to intermediate. Last school holidays, we arranged a class daily for my daughter every morning, and it was incredible to see the progress she made.

Chiwawa have ongoing classes, otherwise all it takes is 3 students for them to start a new class (max class size is 4 students). Lah Lah Banana readers can benefit from a 10% promo discount at checkout using LAHLAHBCHIWW10. There’s also a free class for your first time trial.

Chess Classes taught in Chinese

In Singapore:  There are so many children’s chess groups in Singapore, for both Western/European Chess, and Chinese Chess (Xiangqi / Weiqi) options. Did you even know there was a difference in rules between European and Chinese chess?

For Western Chess, whilst they’re not explicitly touted as ‘Mandarin speaking’ groups, from our experience, most of the children in the chess clubs are CHinese, and moreover, they’re from Chinese speaking homes. The main Singapore Chess Federation is based at Bishan, and they have weekly classes/competitions and also intensive holiday camps; there are plenty of small teams and academies across the island.

For Chinese chess, Xiangqi Mind Train Academy is a good option (update: Jan 2021 I heard they have stopped with Covid), and classes are conducted explicitly in Chinese and are available either in group settings or private lessons. A lot of the Community Centres and Community Clubs also have groups, so be on the look-out, and you might be surprised and what exists nearby to you.

Online: Again, Bilin Academy have classes in Go! and Weiqi. Well priced for both individual and group classes.

Math and Problem Solving Classes taught in Chinese

Online: Online classes in China have seen exponential growth in recent years, and math classes have been a key area of this. Hence there are at least six providers of math classes taught in Chinese, and we’ve done trials with most of these. Some follow Mainland Chinese Math, others follow Singapore Math syllabus, and others still follow Math Olympiad or other problem solving methods. We found one particular problem solving course (eg Suduko, Rubiks Cube, other puzzles) we enjoy called Pea Math, which has 2 x 45 minutes of lessons per week in a group of 4. It’s been excellent. Initially, when we signed up, I thought the primary intention of the course would assist with speaking /listening skills in Mandarin in a different setting (which is does) but there has also been a lot of reading too, which is a real bonus. For more details, see my post where I compare six different online math class options.

Themed Conversational Classes Taught in Chinese

Yes, there are lots of ‘one off’ classes around the place if you keep your eyes peeled, which focus on conversational Mandarin for children. One helpful source is a Facebook group called ‘Classes for Kids in Chinese and Spanish‘, where group members share their favourite classes.

Honestly, Outshool is a mixed bag, but you can see the parents reviews and all the classes are about US$10/hour, and you will find some gems. Our particular favourites have been a series of classes through Outschool about Pokemon, where a Pokemon theme is used throughout to discuss various concepts from colours and numbers, through to more advanced levels with idioms and shopping lists. Outschool offers $20 free credit for first time users (no strings attached!) which is usually enough for 2 Chinese classes. Riley Lu is a great teacher to look out for.

There’s also an amazing Outschool science class in Mandarin by Jill Laoshi.

Here’s a referral link to get the credit (for full transparency, this also gives me US$20 credit ….. so if you have friends already using the service, do ask them for their codes, as you’ll be doing them a favour using it).

Chinese Church Services and Sunday Schools

This isn’t really a class, but I’m just adding add this onto the list, in case others out there also attend a church which has both English and Chinese congregations.  We had been attending English service regularly for years at a particular church, when one day we accidentally arrive a little earlier to discover an amazing Sunday School led fully in Mandarin.  We’ve been attending church early ever since then!   

The Chinese Children’s Orchestra at our local Community Centre.

Chinese Reading Circles and Debating

In Singapore:  We’ve been part of several different “book club” circles with friends, either in person or more recently online, where the children have all read a similar book (or series of books like Le Le Chinese) and then met weekly to take it in turns reading, and playing games / answering questions related to the books.  These have always been fun, but really require the dedication of a parent (or teacher) who can fluently speak the language and passionately share it with the children.  It’s certainly an interesting option if you can find a great person to lead it!

Online:  We’ve done a series of Chinse debate online classes through Bilin Academy – they have classes for intermediate and beginners, including lower primary. They feature a new topic in each class and assist the child to construct their thinking framework. I feel it’s a super way for a child to learn about public speaking and argument formation, and doing classes in Chinese is much cheaper than the equivalent English alternatives!

There’s another online debating option that we haven’t tried which is for upper primary school and secondary children that looks interesting looking called Children’s debating group in the US run by the inspirational bilingual blogger Oliver Tu. 

Summer Camps and Holiday Camps in Chinese

Another really fun idea is holiday camps in Chinese during the School holidays – where kids go on excursions, cook, do sports and play games and generally have loads of fun, fully in Chinese.  There are usually so many to choose from! I’m really hoping that the virus situation will improve enough to make Summer and Winter Camps (ironic words I know given it’s in Singapore where there’s only one season!) an option for our family again soon. 

If you’ve come here hoping to find more conventional or conversational Chinese class options online, we’ve also done this through the COVID lockdown, and I’ve compared a few options for online Chinese classes for children at in earlier post here.

For those not in Singapore, look at this list by Betty Choi of CHALK Academy of other non-academic classes for children online and in USA.

I’m always looking for more way to slip fun Chinese into our day-to-day routines!  What classes have your family tried and enjoyed?

By the way, if you got to the end of this post and are still reading, perhaps you might be interested in some other posts I have written about learning Chinese, such as:

How to teach a child to read Chinese (when you can’t speak it yourself)

Teaching a child to read Chinese as a parent who cannot

Teaching a child to read Chinese is not an impossible to task, but it requires concerted effort, and if don’t speak the language (which I don’t) then you’ll need to leverage lots of external resources to aid the journey. This post is to offer suggestions, and things which I wish someone had shared earlier with us. I am not a trained language teacher – only a parent trying hard – so it’s not exhaustive by any means, and there are many great ways for teaching a child to read Chinese. They key thing is that you give it a try if you need to!

Reading is SO SO very important on the journey to becoming bilingual in Chinese, even if your ultimate aim for your child is only to speak the language fluently. I have another post about ho2 extensive reading has been key to learning Chinese.

My eldest child was able to read ~1200 characters at about ~8 years of age, which is nothing impressive for a Chinese heritage family, but to me was quite a milestone, as we started on the reading journey quite late, and achieved most of this within about a 2.5 year period since starting school, most of which the school wad closed due to COVID. It was quite a effort on all fronts at home. After this experience with my eldest, I started much earlier to teach my young children to read in Chinese (when they were aged 2 and 4 respectively), and in fact, Chinese was the first language which they could read. A year later, it is still their strongest language to read in. 

As parents, we can neither speak nor read Chinese, so this post it to encourage you and say it is possible to actively help your children despite your situation. Obviously all children are different, with different interests and aptitudes. Mine are great readers, which helps.  By systematically and deliberately putting small doses of Chinese reading into our daily routines, we’ve made the language acquisition happen little-by-little. It’s certainly a marathon not a sprint, and involves some journey pre-planning too.

I saw an Instagram tag #mandarinagainstallodds by one my favourite bookstores in Singapore, and I thought, yep that’s us.  It could be you too.   Even though as parents we cannot speak Chinese, we realised that to go to primary school in Singapore, it would be essential for our children to learn the language, and it’s a good life skill to have. So we made it happen.  And yes, we are absolutely proud of the achievement. 

That’s partially why I started this blog, as a resource to show it is possible (note, I didn’t say easy) to raise happy, bilingual children as monolingual parents.  More importantly, I wanted to support others in their magnanimous language journeys.  There are surprisingly lots of parents doing similar things to us, and it can be your story too. Our family isn’t amazing; far from it. But there are amazing resources out there to help you.

Our family situation

Parents: English speaking; relocated to Singapore as adults

Both my husband and I grew up in countries where learning a second language is not emphasised, and our parents only spoke English to us.  My husband is an avid foodie, and impressively as an adult he has managed to self-learn French and conversational Bahasa, but Chinese has alluded him.  My husband, being ethnically Chinese, has coped with so many “Ah, how come you don’t speak Mandarin, mah?” questions that he’s totally avoided entering Chinatown for the last decade.  In Singapore, where all ethnically Chinese people must learn their mother tongue at school without exception, it’s somewhat of an absurd novelty, especially to the older generation, that a Chinese person may exist who cannot understand even a teeny-weeny bit of the language (although usually his next move is to respond to them in Bahasa and watch their eyes bulge! It work especially well at the hawker centre, as usually the Malay stall owners next door have a huge belly laugh too).

When we moved to Singapore, in hindsight I wish I’d gotten my act together and started to learn one of the official languages here: 15 years later and I still don’t even know enough to confidently share a greeting or nicety. It’s not without trying though – I once tried wishing Happy New Year a to a highly auspicious auntie, and got my  “Gōng Xǐ Fā Cái” mixed up with my and “Gung Hei Fatt Choy” and it rolled off my tongue fluently as something like “Gung Hei Xi Fatt” ….. which was wishing the the dear old lady a prosperous time in the bathroom over the coming year. She didn’t see the funny side, alas.

I remember applying to MBA school, and feeling frustrated that the particular school I was most interested in required applicants to speak not only a second language, but a third as well!  I promised myself that I would try to give my children this opportunity to properly learn a language if we could.  With three children born in Asia, at least something was on our side!

The initial pipe dream that I had for the children was to employ a Chinese nanny ….. seven years later I still have no clue how to go about that, but I want to show you that just because you don’t speak the language nor have any other Chinese speaker available in the house, it shouldn’t stop you from supporting bilingual language learning, especially if you’re living in a country which is conducive to it.

Child One:  the wake-up call

  • Attended a preschool from age 2 to 6 years old, which supposedly had Chinese/English bilingual focus (thought most schools in Singapore will say this)
  • Learnt to read English at 4 years old; never did any reading / speaking of Chinese outside of school, and never read it that well
  • Upon entering primary school, her spoken Chinese was excellent but reading lagged her peers; she could read/write barely 200 characters.  Within first 6 months of primary school, her speaking had regressed too almost nothing.
  • This was when I made ‘the intervention’ (which I’ll discuss below)
  • By Primary 2, after ‘the intervention’, she had reading, writing, and speaking of Chinese at a similar level to her English abilities, and is much more confident learner (1200+ characters).  She finished catching up using Le Le book series, and moved onto read bridging books and other more age-appropriate literature.

Child Two : essentially bilingual from the start

  • Currently attends a local preschool
  • Able to read short Chinese stories as a four year old (~200 characters); Chinese reading and writing level is well ahead of her equivalent English reading/writing level
  • We read short stories together each evening, and working through Sage Set 3 and Red Le Le books
  • Other parents and school teachers are most surprised to realise that no adult in the house speaks Chinese!

Child Three: only reads in Chinese

  • Is homeschooled, and attends a part-day kindergarten which is non bilingual
  • Able to read very short Chinese sentences as a two year old (~30 characters and counting!); still unable to read in English; unable to write in any language! She’s barely three, of course I don’t expect her to read or write English either, I just highlight for comparison purposes.
  • We read short stories together each evening, and working through Sage Set 1, because she was interested to start.
  • School teachers have no idea she can read Chinese, as reading isn’t tsaught in school.

How I helped the children to read in Chinese without knowing the language

I’m not a tiger mum, and we’re not a tiger family. My kids have simple (and what I hope are happy) lifestyles – they play outdoors, they get messy, they laugh.  This in itself appears to be a rarity in Singapore.  Many kids join tuition centres for multiple subjects between ages 3 – 4, and by primary school, mums and maids often have a full-time programme chauffeuring their kids between 2 to 3 enrichment classes each evening, and perhaps 5 classes on a weekend…… nope, that’s not us.  Gosh it’s exhausting just to type about it.  I have a push bike with three kids’ seats attached to it – we ride it to school, we ride it to the park and the library.  They kids are in their pajamas before 8pm, which is about the time their friends are often starting up a tuition class!  Alas, I diverge.

My kids aren’t geniuses either.  Their Chinese language skills are nothing extraordinary, relative to other children.  However, they do love the language, and all three are able to keep up with local Singaporean peers, which for me, is extraordinary enough.

I see a lot of chatter in the primary school class Whatsapp groups (from Chinese mother-tongue families)  commenting “tingxie (spelling list) this week is too hard” etc.  Well, I wouldn’t know because I have nothing to compare it to myself – but I do know my elder child has never mentioned it being a challenge, which I’m glad about, because I don’t want language learning to become a chore. She knows she needs to put in effort, and she sees that I’m right beside her putting in effort too (entering the spelling lists into Skritter app, chopping up homemade flash cards, using Google translate to work out how to order books from Taobao, listening to audio stories on Luka, etc). Together we make progress and celebrate. I would make an observation that rote learning characters is dead boring – it’s much better to teach a child to read Chinese using real literature.

teach child to read Chinese using Luka
Luka is excellent for assisting a child to read Chinese by themselves

The “Intervention” to really teach my child to read Chinese

In the middle of my daughter’s first year of primary school (P1), I realised that we needed to change the way she was learning Chinese.  It couldn’t just be confined to one passive hour a day in the classroom.

I knew her marks in Chinese had never been great, and I’d turned a blind eye to it, thinking “as long as she’s happy and learning something, then I’m happy”.  But the epiphany came when, I found some of her old Chinese worksheets from her kindergarten days, and asked her to read it.  She couldn’t – and we were both dumbfounded.  I resolved to change this.  You can read my earlier post here on the background of why this occurred.  Let’s just say, the local primary school environment in Singapore has great curriculum and book learning, but an hour a day of Chinese means the learning cannot be left only for the school classroom. So unless both speaking and reading (and ultimately writing too) is reinforced outside of the classroom, it’s a tough battle.

The main change which followed was my mindset. I needed to go from being a backseat passenger, to being highly embedded and engaged in the language journey.  I realised I needed to be more than just my daughter’s support crew and cheerleader, but to be actively mapping the lay of the land, and reinforcing her understanding of what we were seeing, and where we were going. We need to bring Chinese into our home lives too. And that’s when I really started teaching all my children to read in Chinese.

Everyone is at a different place, with different needs.  For us, as a non-Chinese speaking family, the way this played out was that we decided to:

  1. ensure that with each child, we spent at least 10 minutes daily with the child reading to an adult an appropriate levelled  Chinese readers/book. I’ve made a list of our favourite Chinese levelled readers.
  2. add in at least one Chinese bedtime story into the evening mix (usually about 10 minutes too). If you cannot tell the stories yourself, then check out Luka Reading Robot. Or if you can read a little, try an AI Dictionary scanning pen to support you.
  3. allow some iPad screen time, and let the children play two Chinese literacy app games each weekend, and for my eldest, to complete at least 5 minutes of character writing practice each day in another app with words aligned to her school studies.
  4. If budget allows, rope in the assistance of online conversations with Chinese speakers once or twice a week (plenty of fun and low cost options to enable short 15 – 25 minutes chats). LingoAce is great for MOE syllabus, and GoEast is awesome for something tailored. We did a review and comparison of many online Chinese classes we’ve tried here. If you don’t want to overload on straight Chinese classes, you can try a fun CCA class taught in Chinese. We’ve tried to a few.

Small changes; big difference.  Think about it, by doing the first three activities, you sneak in an extra 20+ minutes of (fun & free) Chinese each day, and across a week that’s well over 2 hours of additional Chinese exposure.   

It’s also changed the way the kids think – we’ve shown them now that we’re making consistent and deliberate time for Chinese, and space on our bookshelves for it too.  This demonstrates to them we’re serious about it, and it’s one of our priorities.  We’ve been really regular at having this feature in our evening routine – we sometimes forget to use our points chart, and have been known to forget bedtime prayers, but I don’t think in the past year that we’ve ever forgotten to do our Chinese reading! 

teach child to read Chinese using Le Le Chinese readerd
Le Le Chinese readers are a perfect start to reach a child to read in Chinese

But how did you teach your child to read Chinese without speaking the language?

First thing to note, before teaching your child to read Chinese, your child must really grasp basic spoken Mandarin. Is this isn’t your family, check out a different post about how monolingual families can start the language journey. If your children they do already understand basic spoken Chinese instructions and are ready to read, there are some really great tools out there.   There are also some great communities too. The one thing I wouldn’t bother doing is attempting to speak/learn Chinese myself, as that wouldn’t be conducive learning.

My logic has always been that as I cannot speak the language, I need to leverage on the best tools which exist.  I have spent (and continue to spend!) a lot of time researching how and what to buy, and I’m very confident that what we have landed with are an excellent collection, which provide a systematic approach to learning characters, supporting the school syllabus, and embedding a love of the language through literacy.  Although, learning and innovation never stops, so I’m always keen to hear new suggestions if you have any!

I’ve mentioned these above, but I’ll expand here. The Chinese literacy games like iHuman and Wukong Literacy (both reviewed here) are perfect for a child who understand Chinese, even if ther parent doesn’t not – what’s more, they’re super fun. The character writing is Skritter (my review is here) and whilst it’s not fun, it is a way that a parent can upload all the tingxie words for a child to learn independently. I have no affiliation to any of these apps or companies, and no referral / discounts either, but I’m sharing because they really are excellent for families in our situation. That said, for Skritter, there is generally a massive group buy for families in Singapore annually, where price is reduced from US$12/month, to US$12 per YEAR. If interested in this, join the FB group Ni Hao SG Primary School Learning, and join the conversations.

The Luka Reading Companion (reviewed here) is what we use to read the Chinese picture books, and the books we’ve found most useful to start out with the children are Sage 500 Books (reviewed here) and Le Le Chinese Reading System (reviewed here).  Again, no affiliation, but I can say that for Luka, Sage and Le Le there are amazing online communities of other parents using these resources, and sharing how they use them (mainly through FB groups), and for that, I’m forever grateful.  Also, each of the distributors of these products have good support for their customers, including free printables, crafts and other online resources to aid families.

If your child has graduated beyond simple Chinese readers, then Chinese bridging books combined with an optical reading pen make is possible for a child to read independently. The Youdao Dictionary pen (reviewed here) or the very similar iFlytek Alpha Egg (reviewed here) have been other great tools for my eldest daughter to translate harder Chinese characters in the novels she now reads, and lets her confidently understand a book, despite perhaps only knowing 85% of the characters contained.

I have actually written some other blog posts which might be helpful if you’re reading this as a parent who cannot speak the language and wondering what might work for you:

  1. Should I opt for Chinese as my child’s mother tongue at primary school?
  2. Is your child achieving fluency a realistic goal for a non-Chinese speaking family?
  3. Reading Pens and Robots to aid in Chinese learning
  4. Surviving P1 Chinese for the clueless parent
  5. Best Chinese levelled readers for learning with your child
  6. Building a Chinese home library for children
Teach child to read Chinese using flashcards

Things to consider when thinking about how your child is acquiring the Chinese language

  • Your attitude: Don’t stress. Enjoy the journey. Make it a priority yes, but make it an enjoyable part of life, not a chore.
  • Reading comprehension is important too:  Until primary school started, I thought that prioritising listening/speaking would be more than enough (and it’s certainly the first and most important step).  But particularly in the way that Chinese language is taught in Singaporean local schools, reading and writing need to be in close lockstep to the speaking.  Chinese in Singapore is taught as a subject during the day, not as a second language or immersion style, in large class sizes (40 kids) with limited opportunity for to one-on-one interactions.
  • Every child is different:  comparing your child to the others in the class (or other siblings) is not necessarily helpful.  Every child is different, and learns at a different pace.  English and Chinese may also be taken to differently.   It might be encouraging to know though that my experience of having two pre-schoolers who can read Chinese more easily than English is not unique.  Research shows that pictorial language can be acquired faster than alphabet-based language in early stages.  Betty from Chalk Academy has written a nice explanation on her blog, around how learning Chinese characters are like word puzzles which provide instant gratification. 
  • Every household situation is different:  we’re in a unique situation living in Singapore – there is plenty of spoken Chinese in the community, books freely available at the library, cheap resources in bookstores, and plenty of children learning the language in school. So for us, the key challenge/solution was finding ways to integrate these resources better into our everyday lives for reinforcing the learning.  For others overseas (or moving back home after a stint in Singapore), the challenges to continue language learning could be far far greater, with more limited access to resources and teaching. 
  • Integrate the language into everyday life where possible: If you want the kids to be bilingual, then treat it as part of life. For example, Singapore has shop signs in Chinese, shopping centre announcements in Chinese.  If we see/hear, I ask my children out of curiosity what is being said.  We can learn together.   We started attending a Chinese-based Church, with a great Sunday School.  More recently during Covid, we have realised that we can even do online piano classes in Chinese (from mainland China), take interactive Chinese art and calligraphy classes (from US), and participate in live Chinese storytime sessions from libraries in Taiwan. It all counts, and none of it is that hard to arrange.
  • Everyone has a different way of being right: just because something worked for my children, doesn’t mean it will work for yours. I co-authored a post with Maggie from PandaMama about the difference in approach between her family (Chinese-heritage, but in a non-Chinese country) and our approach (as non-Chinese speakers in a Chinese speaking country). Read up, talk to people, and understand what others have done. There is another really interesting post on CHALK Academy about how an inspiring Chinese-heritage mother was able to effectively homeschool her daughter in a non-Chinese country, with limited resources. You’ll see her approach is totally different from our family’s given the different cultural and family context. But the result is impressive – with effectively bilingual and biliterate children.
Learning Chinese in a monolingual family can be fun

I’ve learnt a lot through supportive online communities like the Face Book Group Ni Hao Sg Primary School Learning, and other bloggers like GrowingHearts123 and Guavarama Finally, there are tonnes of interesting bilingual Instagramming families to live vicariously through if you’re on Instagram (if you’re looking for starting points try @blackgoldfish, @dailymusingofj, @thedreamwhale, @jaslearningwithkids or @ourjoyoflearning, or even my own humble account @lahlahbanana).

I would love to hear how what is working (or not working) for your family too, as life is always easier when it’s shared with like-minded folk. Please drop a comment or reach out if you have further questions or things to teach me!

Luka Compatible Books

[Note – Aug 2021: I have made a new post updating this, containing a list of 1000+ Luka compatible books in Chinese….. please see here for updated post with many more new books]

This post lists out all the Luka compatible books which we have enjoyed reading through our wonderful Luka Reading robots. Whether you have Original Luka, Hero, or a Mini, they will all read the same book collection (although Luka Hero offers a few more different narrations to choose from for particular books).

This post covers:

  1. Checking if a book is compatible with Luka
  2. Luka compatible books for 2 – 3 Year olds
  3. Luka compatible books for 4 – 6 Year olds
  4. Luka compatible books for 7 – 10 Year olds

(If reading this, and you’re not aware what Luka Reading Companion or Luka Hero is, you can see my previous review outlining this little reading robot which narrates physical picture books page-by-page, and Luka Hero model can even read individual characters by pointing to them).

How to check whether a book is compatible with Luka or Luka Hero

With the Luka app, it’s easy peasy to check whether a book is compatible,  because you can just scan the barcode/ISBN code on your phone, and it will tell you if Luka has a narration of the book.  I used to always do this when browsing book at the library.   Admittedly, with the COVID situation and lack of physical book browsing, it’s harder:  online shopping would be a lot easier (more dangerous!…) with a Luka shopping list.

Finding Luka compatible books
Use the scanner in top right of the Luka app to scan a book’s barcode and see if Luka recognises it

We read every evening with Luka and have reasd thousands of books, so I’ll limit this to the main ones which we’ve enjoyed, and only the Chinese titles (because Luka also reads in other languages too).  I’ll slowly link this up with reviews I write in future for some of these sets. 

I’ve also written a separate post for those in Singapore looking to borrow Luka compatible books from the National Library Board libraries, with some extra tips and tricks, including our favourite authors.

Our Favourite Luka Compatible Books for Toddlers (2 – 3 year olds)

Peppa PIg in Chinese
Pappa Pig
Littlwe Bear and Best Daddy in Chinese
Little Bear & The Best Daddy
Todd's World in Chinese
Todd’s World

Apolline’s Little World 14-Book Set 阿波林的小世界 – by Didier Dufresne

  • 阿波林的小世界-穿衣服 Getting Dressed
  • 阿波林的小世界-快睡觉 Bedtime
  • 阿波林的小世界-刷牙 Brushing Teeth
  • 阿波林的小世界-洗澡 Bathing
  • 阿波林的小世界-不想午睡 Don’t Want To Nap
  • 阿波林的小世界-过家家 Around The House
  • 阿波林的小世界-把尿尿 Using the Bathroom
  • 阿波林的小世界-花园里 In the Garden
  • 阿波林的小世界-堆雪人 Making a Snowman
  • 阿波林的小世界-小医生 The Little Doctor
  • 阿波林的小世界-圣诞礼物 The Christmas Gift
  • 阿波林的小世界-生日快乐 Happy Birthday
  • 阿波林的小世界-开汽车 Driving A Car
  • 阿波林的小世界-在海滩 At the Beach

Dear Zoo 亲爱的动物园 – by Rod Campbell

Dots 点点点 – by Herve Tullet (also 变变变 Change Change and 小黄点 Little Yellow Dot).

Good night, Gorilla 晚安，大猩猩 – Peggy Rathmann

Llama Llama 8-Book Set – by Anna Dewdney

  • 穿红衣的拉玛 Llama Llama Red Pajama
  • 拉玛生妈妈的气  Llama Llama Mad at Mama
  • 拉玛想妈妈  Llama Llama Misses Mama
  • 拉玛过圣诞节  Llama Llama Holiday Drama
  • 拉玛和妈妈在家  Llama Llama Home with Mama
  • 拉玛学会了分享  Llama Llama Time to Share
  • 拉玛和捣蛋鬼  Llama Llama and the Bully Goat
  • 拉玛和外婆外公 Llama Llama Grandma and Grandpa

The Little Bear & The Best Daddy: 小熊和最好的爸爸 (set of 7 books)

My First Nature Encyclopedia 我的第一套自然认知书

  • 脸 Faces
  • 睡觉 Sleeping
  • 吃饭 Eating
  • 你住在哪儿 Where Do You Stay?
  • 你在干什么 What Are You Doing?
  • 地底下有什么 What is Underground?
  • 猜猜我是谁 Guess Who I Am
  • 各种各样的蛋 All Kinds of Eggs
  • 小仓鼠 Little Hamster
  • 快乐的小狗 Happy Dogs
  • 鸟儿 Birds
  • 小小寄居蟹 Little Hermit Crabs
  • 独角仙 Rhinoceros Beetle
  • 好玩的昆虫 Fun Insects
  • 金龟子的颜色 Colours of Beetles
  • 藏猫猫的竹节虫 Stick Insects Playing Hide and Seek
  • 你是昆虫吗 Are You an Insect?
  • 有趣的水果 Interesting Fruit
  • 神奇的种子 Amazing Seeds
  • 河水流啊流 Rivers Flow

Mr Panda’s Good Manners 熊猫先生 series – by Steve Antony

  • 谢谢你，熊猫先生Thank You, Mr. Panda
  • 我愿意等，熊猫先生I’ll Wait, Mr. Panda
  • 晚安，熊猫先生Goodnight, Mr. Panda
  • 请给我，熊猫先生Please, Mr. Panda

Peppa Pig: 1st Bilingual Board Book Series 小猪佩奇 series (see blog entry here)

  • 我妈妈 My Mummy
  • 我爸爸 My Daddy
  • 我爷爷 My Grandpa
  • 我奶奶 My Granny

Peppa Pig: 2nd Bilingual Board Book Series 小猪佩奇 series

  • 自行车比赛 Peppa’s Big Race
  • 佩奇打篮球 Peppa Plays Basketball
  • 体育课 Peppa’s Gym Class
  • 佩奇去滑冰 Peppa Goes Ice Skating
  • 趣味长跑 Daddy Pig’s Fun Run

Rosie’s Walk 母鸡萝丝去散步 – Patricia Hutchins

10 Fingers and 10 Toes 袋貂魔法  – by Mem Fox

The Taste of Home (Set of 7) 家的味道 – by Todd Parr (short review here)

  • 家庭书 The Family Book
  • 妈妈书 The Mommy Book
  • 爸爸书 The Daddy Book
  • 奶奶书 The Grandma Book
  • 爷爷书 The Grandpa Book
  • 我爱你 The I Love You Book
  • 爱让我们在一起  We Belong Together

Todd’s World series 淘弟有个大世界 – by Todd Parr. See blog entry here.

  • 不一样，没关系It’s Okay to Be Different 
  • 没关系The Okay Book 
  • 感觉书The Feelings Book
  • 感觉真棒The Feel Good Book
  • 我不怕了The I’m Not Scared Book
  • 地球书The Earth Book
  • 和平书The Peace Book (see a a short review here)
  • 读书真好Reading Makes You Feel Good

The Hungry Caterpillar 好饿的毛毛虫  – by Eric Carle

You’re All My Favourite 你们都是我的最爱 – by Sam McBratney

Our Favourite Luka Books for Little Children (4 – 6 year olds)

Note – these books may also be a good level for an older child to independently read, and then use Luka to “check back” on their understanding.

Elephant and Piggy in Chinese
Elephant & Piggy
Paw Patrol in Chinese
Paw Patrol
Angry Prince in Chinese
The Angry Prince
Luka compatible books
Tyrannosaurs series
My Feelings Series in Chinese
My Feelings series

The Angry Prince 生气王子 – by Lai Ma

Brave Little Train 勇敢小火车 – by Lai Ma

Disney: I Will Read Level 1-Level 4 (Set of 24) 迪士尼我会自己读第1级-第4级（套装共24册）. See my detailed review for more information.

Farmer Duck– by Martin Waddell [we have the English version, but Luka will read in Chinese]

Giraffes Can’t Dance 长颈鹿不会跳舞 by Giles Andreae

Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs – by Mo Willems

Guess How Much I Love You 猜猜我有多爱你 – by Sam McBratney

Harry the Dirty Dog  好脏的哈利 – by Gene Zion

I am a fire breathing dragon 我变成一只喷火龙了 – by Lai Ma

Meg & Mog series – by Helen Nicoll [we have the English version, but Luka will read in Chinese]

My Feelings – 我的感觉 Bilingual (Set of 8) – by Cornelia Maude Spelman,  [Luka reads both Chinese and English] See blog entry here with review.

  • 我好害怕 When I Feel Scared
  • 我好难过 When I Feel Sad
  • 我觉得自己很棒 When I Feel Good About Myself
  • 我会关心别人 When I Care for Others (see a brief review with a few pictures here)
  • 我好嫉妒 When I Feel Jealous
  • 我好生气 When I Feel Angry
  • 我想念你 When I Miss You
  • 我好担心 When I Feel Worried

My Magic Toilet 我的神奇马桶 – Noritake Suzuki

My Amazing Bath 我的百变浴缸 – Noritake Suzuki

Odonata Chinese Levelled Reading Series: see detailed review here

Paw Patrol 汪汪队 Series 1 (see blog entry here)

  • 汪汪队-脱险的小火车 Pups Save a Train
  • 汪汪队-挽救大游轮 Pups Save the Cruise Ship
  • 汪汪队-走失的小野雁 Pup Pup Goose
  • 汪汪队-送外星人回家 Pups Save the Space Alien
  • 汪汪队-失控的三轮车 Pups Pit Crew
  • 汪汪队-圣诞夜大救援 Pups Save Christmas
  • 汪汪队-抢险小能手 Flying Adventure
  • 汪汪队-营救淘气小猫 Pups Save a Kitten

Paw Patrol 汪汪队 Series 2 (see blog entry here)

  • 汪汪队-雪山救生员 Pups’ Snowy Mountain Rescue
  • 汪汪队-你好，奇异岛 Pups Explore an Island
  • 汪汪队-空中大冒险 Pups’ Sky Adventure 
  • 汪汪队-抢救机器狗 Pups Save Robo-Dog
  • 汪汪队-冒险湾停电了 Pups Turn on the Lights
  • 汪汪队-水塔抢修大行动  Pups Save a Water Tower
  • 汪汪队-消防小英雄 Pups Fight Fire
  • 汪汪队-猫狗大战  Pups and Taekwondo
  • 汪汪队-热气球比赛  Pup Pup and Away
  • 汪汪队-火车大救援  Pups Save a Train

Rosie’s Walk 母鸡萝丝去散步 – By Pat Hutchins

Stone Soup 石头汤 – by Jon J Muth

Tyrannosaurus series – by Tatsuya Miyanishi, translated from Japanese) (see blog entry here)

  • 你看起来好像很好吃 You Look Yummy
  • 你真好You Are My Best Friend
  •  遇到你, 真好  I Want That Love
  •  永远永远爱你I Will Love You Forever
  • 霸王龙 I Am A Tyrannosaurus
  • 我爱你 I Really Love You
  • 最爱的, 是我 I Am Dad’s Favourite 

Berenstain Bears 贝贝熊 series by Jan & Mike Berenstain [these are good, but not great, as the Chinese text is tiny, and whilst the English rhymes, the Chinese translation doesn’t]

  • 贝贝熊-水族馆的一天  At The Aquarium
  • 贝贝熊-许愿星 Wishing Star
  • 贝贝熊-海滩挖宝记 Seashore Treasure
  • 贝贝熊-去农场做客 Down on the Farm
  • 贝贝熊-新来的狗狗 New Pup
  • 贝贝熊-参观养蜂场 Class Trip
  • 贝贝熊-过夜的小客人 Sleepover
  • 贝贝熊-捡来的小猫 New Kitten
  • 贝贝熊-坐火车旅行 All Aboard 
  • 贝贝熊-金花鼠宝宝到我家 Baby Chipmunk 
  • 《贝贝熊-西部牧场行》The Berenstain Bears, Out West
  • 《贝贝熊-小马驹奥斯卡》The Berenstain Bears, Shaggy Little Pony 

Elephant and Piggie 开心小猪和大象哥哥 Set – by Mo Willems (see review here)

  • 今天我要飞！Today I Will Fly!
  • 等待真不容易！Waiting Is Not Easy!
  • 我的朋友不开心My Friend Is Sad
  • 第一次参加派对！I Am Invited To A Party
  • 你头上有只鸟！There Is A Bird On Your Head
  • 吓你一跳！I Will Surprise My Friend
  • 看我来扔球！Watch Me Throw The Ball
  • 大象不会跳舞！Elephant Cannot Dance 
  • 我要走了！I am Going!
  • 我能一起玩吗？Can I Play Too?
  • 我们在一本书里！We Are in a Book
  • 要不要分享冰激凌？Should I Share My Ice Cream? 
  • 听我吹小号！Listen To My Trumpet 
  • 开车去兜风！Let’s Go For A Drive!
  • 大个子抢了我的球！A Big Guy Took My Ball!
  • 我是一只青蛙！I’m a Frog!
  • 新朋友真有趣！My New Friend Is So Fun!

Curious George Curious Series 好奇的乔治系列  – by Margret Rey & H.A. Rey (various books including ones listed below)

  • 好奇的乔治和黄帽子 Curious George and The Yellow Hat
  • 好奇的乔治看游行 Curious George watching the procession
  • 好奇的乔治去海边 Curious George goes to the Beach
  • 好奇的乔治和翻斗车 Curious George and the Dumper Truck
  • 好奇的乔治去野营 Curious George goes Camping
  • 好奇的乔治在梦里 Curious George in his Dreams
  • 好奇的乔治和小狗 Curious George and the Puppy
  • 好奇的乔治去巧克力工厂 Curious George visits the Chocolate Factory
  • 好奇的乔治去玩具店 Curious George visits the Toy Store

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus set by Mo Willems  [Note – Luka will read the Chinese books in English only; but it’s a nice way for a child to check on their understanding of the written Chinese]

  • 别让鸽子开巴士！Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus!
  • 鸽子捡到一个热狗！The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog! (see a short review in this post)
  • 鸽子需要洗个澡！The Pigeon Needs A Both!
  • 别让鸽子太晚睡！Don’t Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late!
  • 鸽子想要小狗狗！The Pigeon Wants A Puppy!
  • 鸭子弄到一块饼干！？The Duckling Gets A Cookie!?

Elmer the Elephant (various books from the library in Chinese) – by David McKee

  • Elmer’s Colours
  • Elmer’s Weather
  • Elmer’s Race
  • Elmer and the Monster
  • Elmer and the Race

Guess How Much I Love You 猜猜我有多爱你 – by Sam McBratney

Grumpy Day for Badger 小獾今早心情不好  by Mortiz Petz and Amelia Jackowski [published in English under the title – The Bad Mood Book]

Good Night, Moon 晚安，月亮 – by Margaret Wise Brown

Grace Says 说心 set  by Emma Henderson

  • Grace说专心 Grace Said Focus
  • Grace说耐心 Grace Said Patience 
  • Grace说恒心 Grace Said Persistence [not in Luka yet] 

The Giving Tree 爱心树 by Shel Silverstein (very short review in this post)

How full is your bucket? 你的水桶有多满 – by Tom Rath

Have you filled a bucket today 你把水桶加满了吗？– by Carol McCloud 

Madeline 马德琳 series by Ludwig Bemelmans

  • 马德琳 Madeline
  • 马德琳和小捣蛋 Madeline and the Bad Hat
  • 马德琳的救命狗Madeline’s Rescue
  • 马德琳在伦敦 Madeline in London
  • 玛德琳的圣诞节 Madeline’s Christmas
  • 玛德琳和吉普赛人 Madeline and the Gypsies

Magic school bus bridge books 魔法校車第二輯  (桥梁版) (set of 22)

My Favourite Grandma 最喜爱的奶奶 (aka Grandma Dearest) – by Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara (review here)

Officer Buckle and Gloria 警官巴克尔和警犬葛芮雅

Odonata Chinese Levelled Reading Series: see detailed review here

Taro Gomi Collection – by Taro Gomi

You’re All My Favourite 你们都是我的最爱 – by Sam McBratney

Our Favourite Luka Compatible Books for Primary age children (7 – 10 year olds)

Mi XIao Quan
Frog and Toad in Chinese
Luka compatible books
Octonauts in Chinese
Magic Schoolbus in Chinese
Luka compatible books

Butt Detective 屁屁偵探 (translated from Japanese) (see detailed review here)

Camphor Tree Apartments 樟树公寓 series by Etsuko Bushika and Shigeki Suezaki (translated from Japanese)

  • 10层楼的大树屋The 10 Story Tree Apartments 
  • 新邻居来了The New Neighbour 
  • 下雨天的故事 The Rainy Day
  • 鼹鼠的暑假 Mr. Mole’s Summer Vacation 
  • 秋天的节日 The Autumn Festival 
  • 候鸟音乐会 The Concert 
  • 下雪天的秘密  The Secret of A Snowy Day

Crow Bakery (Set of 5) 乌鸦面包店 – by 加古里子 Satoshi Kako (see my book review here)

  • 乌鸦面包店 Crow Bakery
  • 乌鸦糕点店 Crow Pastry Shop
  • 乌鸦天妇罗店 Crow Tempura Shop
  • 乌鸦蔬果店 Crow Fruit and Veggie Shop
  • 乌鸦荞麦面店 Crow Soba Noodle Shop

Disney: I will read Level 5-Level 8 by myself (Set of 24) 迪士尼我会自己读第5级-第8级（24册套装）

Insects’s Diary Series ( Set of 4 ) 蚯蚓的日记系列（全4册）- by Doreen Cronin

  • 苍蝇的日记 (Diary of a Fly) 
  • 蚯蚓的日记  (Diary Of A Worm)
  •  蜘蛛的日记 (Diary of a Spider 1 & 2)

Frog and Toad 4-Book Set 青蛙和蟾蜍 – by Arnold Lobel (See detailed review here)

  • 好朋友 Frog and Toad Are Friends
  • 好伙伴 Frog and Toad Together
  • 快乐时光 Days with Frog and Toad
  • 快乐年年 Frog and Toad All Year 

How full is your bucket? 你的水桶有多满 – by Tom Rath

Have you filled a bucket today 你把水桶加满了吗？– by Carol McCloud 

House of 100 Stories 100层的房子 3 book set – by Toshio Iwai (see my book review here)

  • 100层的房子 House of 100 Stories 
  • 海底100层的房子 House of 100 Stories – Undersea 
  • 地下100层的房子 House of 100  Stories – Underground

Idioms Smart Flashcards 哆学成语智慧卡 (see blog post here with review)

Laura’s Star Series 劳拉的星星 (12 books, translated from German)

L’Ptites Poules 不一样的卡梅拉  set by Christian Jolibois (translated from French)

  • 不一样的卡梅拉-我想去看海  I Want to See the Ocean
  • 不一样的卡梅拉-我想有颗星星  I Want to Have a Star
  • 不一样的卡梅拉-我想有个弟弟 I Want A Brother
  • 不一样的卡梅拉-我去找回太阳 I Will Get The Sun Back
  • 不一样的卡梅拉-我爱小黑猫  I Love The Black Kitten 
  • 不一样的卡梅拉-我能打败怪兽  I Can Defeat the Monster
  • 不一样的卡梅拉-我要找到朗朗  I Must Find Lang Lang 
  • 不一样的卡梅拉-我不要被吃掉  I Must Not Be Eaten 
  • 不一样的卡梅拉-我好喜欢她  I Really Like Her
  • 不一样的卡梅拉-我要救出贝里奥  I Must Rescue Beiliao
  • 不一样的卡梅拉-我不是胆小鬼 I Am Not Scared
  • 不一样的卡梅拉-我爱平底锅  I Love the Pan

Magic Schoolbus 神奇校车 series by Joanna Cole (see blog post here)

  • 神奇校车：地球内部探秘 Inside the Earth 
  • 神奇校车：气候大挑战 The Climate Challenges
  • 神奇校车：探访感觉器官 The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses
  • 神奇校车：漫游电世界 The Electric Field Trip
  • 神奇校车：奇妙的蜂巢 Inside a Beehive 
  • 神奇校车：穿越飓风 Inside a Hurricane 
  • 神奇校车：追寻恐龙 In the Time of the Dinosaurs 
  • 神奇校车：海底探险 On the Ocean Floor 
  • 神奇校车：迷失在太阳系 Lost in the Solar System 
  • 神奇校车：在人体中游览 Inside the Human Body 
  • 神奇校车：水的故事 At the Waterworks 
  • 神奇校车：科学博览会 The Science Fair Expedition

Martine Story Books ( Set of 60 ) 玛蒂娜故事书（全新版 套装全60册）- by Gilbert Delahaye

Mi Xiao Quan School Diaries 米小圈上学记 (see blog post here)

  •  米小圈上学记系列一  First Year of School (only Books 1 & 2 on Luka)

Octonauts series (see blog post here)

  • 饥饿的引水鱼 The Hungry Pilot Fish
  • 大王乌贼 The Giant Squid 
  • 独角鲸 The Narwhal
  • 迷路海星 The Lost Sea Star
  • 海象首领 The Walrus Chief
  • 海马传说 The Seahorse Tale
  • 水滴鱼兄弟 The Blobfish Brothers
  • 海底风暴 The Undersea Storm
  • 怪兽地图 Monster Map
  • 小海豚 The Baby Dolphin

Super Wings

  • 秘鲁画画大作战 Drawing Pictures in Peru Arts 
  • 雅典戏剧 The Opera in Athens
  • 去阿根廷踢足球 The Soccer Match in Argentina
  • 不丹巨雪人 Bhutan’s Giant Snowman
  • 大珊瑚岛的小猪 The Piggy in Bahamas
  • 阿拉斯加冰山之旅 Journey to the Alaskan Iceberg
  • 阿尔卑斯火车救援 Alps Train Rescue
  • 香港怪物大作战 Battling the Monster in Hong Kong

Titchy Witch 小女巫格格 (12-Book Set) – by Rose Impey

  • 生日扫帚 Titchy Witch and the Birthday Broomstick
  • 消失的宝宝 Titchy Witch and the Disappearing Baby
  • 青蛙之灾 Titchy Witch and the Frog Fiasco
  • 迷路的龙 Titchy Witch and the Stray Dragon
  • 霸道的变形怪 Titchy Witch and the Bully-Boggarts
  • 松动的门牙 Titchy Witch and the Wobbly Fang
  • 给妈妈的康复汤 Titchy Witch and the Get-Better Spell
  • 魔法聚会 Titchy Witch and the Magic Party
  • 理发惊魂记 Titchy Witch and the Scary Haircut
  • “老师喜欢我“咒语 Titchy Witch and the Teacher-Charming Spell
  • ”让爸爸妈妈回家“咒语 Titchy Witch and the Babysitting Spell
  • 神秘林历险 Titchy Witch and the Forbidden Forest

Wilma the Elephant 大象小不点 (4 book set) – by Erwin Moser (a few photos here)

  • 小不点走丢了 Wilma Is Lost
  • 小不点的新朋友 Wilma’s New Friend
  • 小不点的大冒险 Wilma’s Adventure
  • 小不点回家了Wilma Is Home

101个蝌蚪宝宝  101 Tadpoles – by Satoshi Kako 

Where to buy Luka compatible books

Our preferred option in peacetimes is to borrow from the library.  We always check the Singapore NLB catalogue online for availability, and it’s even possible to request a book prior to going to the library.  I’ve written a detailed post about the secret to finding great Luka books in the NLB library collection, as I appreciate it’s not always easy,

However for Luka compatible book buying options:

In Singapore: Most of the titles listed in this post are available from My Story Treasury (online) if you’re looking for a one-stop solution. My Story Treasury is a lovingly curated collection of Chinese picture story books for kids, and as we know from experience that anything in their collection will be excellent!.  My blog readers have a 10% discount if you use “LahLahBanana10” at checkout from their store. There are several other fantastic children’s bookstores in Singapore too who stock some of these books.  Buying local is totally the best. 

In Australia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia & New Zealand:  Most of the titles are available through Luka Reads (online).  Luka Reads is the official retailer of Luka the Reading Robot in Australia, and they also stock great books which are Luka compatible.  If you use “LahLah20Off”, you’ll receive a $20 discount. Thank you Luka Reads for the kindness of blessing my readers!

In United Kingdom / Europe:  De Ziremi is a new online bookstore for Chinese literature for children.  Their collection is growing daily, and they’re hoping to stock some of the titles in this post.  If you quote “LAHLAHSPECIAL” on checkout, my blog reader will receive 10% off. This is a really kind gesture from the four sister team behind De Ziremi.

On Taobao – if you really must do this option, look at the end of my Taobao post for recommended bookstores through Taobao’s TMall.  For specific titles, I also occasionally bundle them up together and order from Taobao / EZ Buy, although have been sometimes disappointed by the quality or by the books having different covers from what Luka can recognise.  On the contrary, we’ve never been disappointed by My Story Treasury. They have an amazing selection of books, with great reviews about each one in their curation.

In United States – Jojo Learning stocks many titles, as does JD.

Where to buy Luka Reading Companion

In Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Australia & New Zealand:  Luka Reads is official distributor through this website: www.lukareads.com. They provide local shipping, local warranty and local support. There are varied retailers around the world, although Luka Reads does ship globally to other countries too, if international shipping fee is paid. Luka Reads have kindly provided a $20 off discount code to readers of my blog, using promo code “Lahlah20off”.

In America / Other countries: I’ve heard from readers that the best price option is likely through the online Chinese store JD.com. The official retailer in US is Jojo Learning. Note: not all of the official authorised global retailers sellers sell the same models, and some of the Lukas don’t have Chinese as an audio option (e.g. the European Luka speaks Germans and English).

Which great Luka Compatible books are we missing?

We’ve come across these books by trial and error, and reading the reviews of others. There are also some good Instagram handles with reviews of Luka compatible books, such as @littlekidreads, or the lists on Luka Reads and Jojo Learning websites.

Which books have your family enjoyed reading through Luka? Feel free to leave any comments or questions.  I’d love to learn more about your experiences with Luka, and your favourite books to read with it. 

Singaporean Children’s Picture Books about Singapore!

Books to read for Singapore National Day

National Day is just around the corner – and for most of us, this year it is likely to be a quiet weekend at home.  So, perhaps you may consider celebrating with some books by Singaporean authors on topics which make our Singapore unique.

Growing up outside of Singapore means that I’m largely unfamiliar with the local ‘book scene’ here, and also many of the pieces of history which have made Singapore what it is today.  We don’t have relatives here who can pass down the stories, so finding beautiful picture books which are locally written about traditional Singapore is a delight – as it means our whole family can learn together.   This past week we’ve been busy reading about the coolies, majies and the Samui women of the not-so-distance past, along with festive foods.

In the country where I grew up, the National Children’s Book Council used to bring children and books together each year for a Book Week Celebration.  This annual event is now well into its 75th year of existence, whereby all primary schools and libraries spend one glorious week celebrating local children’s authors and illustrators.   Classroom teachers, librarians and bookshops would create colourful displays, run competitions, and tell stories to highlight all the new local books which had been published in that year, and students would have parades dressed as characters from their favourite books.   I wish National Children’s Book Week existed in Singapore.   In its absence, we’ve had our own mini celebration of local authors in the lead up to Singapore’s National Day, and done some cooking related to these fascinating locally authored Singaporean picture books.

This blog piece will cover three series which were recommended to us by Lin Xin from My Story Treasury – one of our favourite independent bookstores in Singapore specialising in Chinese titles for Children.  Reading these books was a big endeavour for our family – being locally produced, none of the books were Luka compliant (meaning we had no audio listening option) and all of the books were fully in Chinese without English translation.  But, the joy of learning about yesteryears and traditions of Singapore made this a fully worthwhile exercise.

The three series of book covered in this review are:

Set One: 狮城往事绘本系列 – on heritage occupations

Set Two: 新加坡华族传统食品 – on heritage dishes

Set Three: 大家来过节 – on local festivals in Singapore

Set One:  狮城往事绘本系列
(Lion City Past Story Series)

Author/Illustrator:  Patrick Yee
Country of original publication:  Singapore
Language: Simplified Chinese
~ Pages per book: 30 – 40
~ Lines per page: 2 – 7

~ Books in series: 3
~Pinyin: Yes
~ Audio available: No
~Available in Singapore NLB: Yes
Target age range: 5 – 12

These three books truly give an insight into Singapore of yesteryears and pay tribute to those who enabled Singapore to be what it is today – with a look at heritage occupations of coolies, red headscarves, and majies.  Such jobs formed the backbone of Singapore’s labour force for most of last century.   Each book tells a story of diligence, loyalty and perseverance.

Patrick Yee has written/illustrated more than 100 books!  Gosh I think I’m falling in love with his gorgeous illustrations.  How great it would be to have one framed on our wall.  The rich bright colours and intricate attention to detail reminds me a lot of the mural art done around Singapore by Yip Yew Chong, seen at Tiong Bahru Markets and the Botanical Gardens, among other places.  Suffice to say, this set of books recommended to us by My Story Treasury are visually beautiful.

《妈姐的金鱼灯笼》 Majie and Her Goldfish lantern

Although our society no longer has 妈姐 (majies = sister mothers), most children will know that foreign domestic workers are very much part of our society today.  This book tells the story of a Chinese maid who travelled across the oceans to work in Singapore as a “majie” for wealthy families.

This tale follows a young Chinese girl who boards a ship bound for Singapore, in the hope of a better life.  She is placed to work at a grand house in Joo Chiat Road, Katong.  One of the opening pages has a lovely colourful scene when she alights from the boat, and her first sight is a group of ethnically diverse people at a market and she comments “So this is Nanyang”.  She looks after a young boy from diapers until he is old enough to go to the UK for further studies, upon which she returns back to China.  Her heart is torn, and she doesn’t know where she belongs anymore.  Her village had changed so much; it’s unrecognisable.

“So this is Nanyang”

I had previously heard about “sister mas” from some work colleagues, as they were common in Singapore from World War II through to 1970s.  I never knew though that these women have to take a vow to neither marry nor have their own children. We coincidentally read this book on the same day which we finished watching the original ‘Sound of Music’ musical DVD, so one of my children asked if these nannies were the same as the nuns.  The black-and-white uniform of the majies helped play into this step of logic.  I had to say to my daughter that yes, both nuns and these traditional nannies were women who often give up everything – including their own families – and put all their heart into work they do for others.  In a way, so do many domestic workers today. 

The detail within the illustrations in this book are something to marvel at – the tiles in the house; marble coffee tables; a baby bouncer.  All gorgeous!  

《辛苦了红头巾》The Story of Red Headscarf

Red Headscarves (‘hong tou jin’)  is a reference to the Samsui women who came to Singapore from peasant families to work as unskilled construction workers from early 1930s to 1970s.   Most of them wore iconic headdresses, folded from red cloth, which protected them from the tropical sun, and apparently also kept them safer in the workplace (being a busy construction site). 

The story tells the tale of a farmer’s daughter from Guangdong, who lived in hardship with her family of seven.  One year when the harvest was particularly bad, and her father was unable to marry her to a rich man in the local village, she is sent to Singapore on a crowded boat to work.   With neither money nor clothes, she lives in a shabby Chinatown shophouse, and becomes a construction worker.  It’s painful back-breaking work:  carrying cements, bricks, water, and sand, to earn money to send to her family back home.   But before she can begin, she learns to fold her red headscarf, which is hoped to drive away evil spirits.

Two pages from 辛苦了红头巾

The pictures are bright and beautiful, with the painted brush stroked evident in many of them.  Reading about the challenging lives of the red headscarves, creates another good conversation piece to discuss the migrant construction builders of today.   We can see that the things which we may take for granted – like our homes and sidewalks – were all built literally through the sweat and blood of these migrants.   It also sends a message that construction is not just a job for males, which is another question my girls repeatedly ask whenever we go past a construction site.

《辛苦了，苦力叔叔》The Story of Coolie

92 year old Uncle Lee recounts to his grandson his journey from Fujian province to Singapore, inspired by a photo on the wall.  This old man, like many others, had come to Singapore as a young lad to escape the poverty of China.

The reader is taken back in time, as the old man describes the Singapore he grew up in:  a crowded shared dormitory, long days spent at the wharfs doing manual labour, little sleep or food, and earning a pittance.  His only belongings were red bed sheets and clothing.  These foreign labourers, known as coolies, kept spirits high – despite missing their hometown and family.  Again, one may find some parallels here to Singapore’s current foreign labourers, which at least in our house has been another common topic over the last few months.

From working as a coolie, Uncle Lee ends up marrying a local bride and having 7 kids of his own and moving into an HDB.   Perhaps this is also the untold story of many of the old uncles we walk past every day on the way to school? 

Set Two:  新加坡华族传统食品 (Singapore Chinese Traditional Food)

Author:  Lin Wenpei
Country of original publication:  Singapore
Language: Simplified Chinese
~ Pages per book: 20
~ Lines per page: 5-9

~ Books in series: 8
~Pinyin: Yes
~ Audio available: No
~Available in Singapore NLB: Yes
Target age range: 4 – 8

Singaporean author Lin Wenpei has written a series of eight cute picture books about food in local Chinese celebrations.   The main characters of the picture books are a courageous sister and a playful brother, who attempt to help their families to prepare festive foods. 

Through cartoon style pictures, each book introduces a new food – you sheng (fish sashimi salad), zongzi (rice dumplings), moon cakes, glutinous rice balls, egg rolls, wanton dumplings, steamed rice cakes and fried spring rolls.  Each of these being iconic Chinese foods, traditionally prepared at home to celebrate particular festivals. Being authored in Singapore, the traditions referenced in this book are those that are celebrated in Singapore (and Malaysia) – for example, lou hei is very specific to South East Asia, and is unheard in mainland China!  The illustrations are equally local, and easy to relate to – certainly no one dressed up in warm wintery clothes for Chinese New Year!

In each of the books, the playful sibling duo learn about the different traditions through preparing ingredients, and make some cute blunders along the way, (like the younger brother’s attempt to wash the dumpling leaves with soap and water when making zongzi!).  There are also some Chinese puns, like with the sister says 姜丝 (jiangsi/ginger slices) but the brother mishears 僵尸 (jiangshi/zombie).    

My kids love all 8 of these books.  We’ve previously borrowed a few of them from the library (and I even reviewed one for Dragon Boat Festival).  When I learnt that My Story Treasury were adding these into their list of books, I was sure this was something we’d want to have permanently in our collection.

We enjoyed learning that the first step in making spring rolls it to pour mung beans into the teapot.  It was equally eye-opening to learn that spring rolls are called that, because, well, they’re eaten traditionally at the start of Spring! We also enjoy the fact that the characters share plenty of laughs and ear-to-ear smiles through their family cooking adventures.

If I had one complaint – I wish they had a simple kids’ recipe at the back!  They do have some photographs of the steps, but a real recipe would be wonderful! 

Read the book, and then give it a try yourself as a family.  As the author says in her forward, “I hope that every child can enjoy a childhood filled with memories of making traditional dishes”. 

Books in the series:

《  (一）今天我们捞鱼生》Today we prepare fish sashimi salad
《（二）今天我们包粽子》Today we make rice dumplings
《（三）今天我们做月饼》Today we make mooncakes
《（四）今天我们搓汤圆》Today we make rice balls
《（五）今天我们做鸡蛋卷》Today we make egg rolls
《（六）今天我们包水饺》Today we make dumplings
《（七）今天我们蒸年糕》Today we steam rice cakes
《（八）今天我们炸春卷》Today we fry spring rolls

Set Three: 大家来过节 (Let’s Celebrate – Singaporean Festivals and Customs)

Author:  Fu Chong
Country of original publication:  Singapore
Language: Simplified Chinese
~ Pages per book: 42 – 80
~ Lines per page: 7- 21

~ Books in series: 3
~Pinyin: No
~ Audio available: No
~Available in NLB: No
Target age range: Upwards of 5 (with an adult)

A locally produced series of books details traditional festival and customs celebrated by the different ethnic groups in Singapore.  The set of three 大家来过节 books have been lovingly authored and illustrated by Frank Fu, who is both a talented artist and curious school teacher, making the perfect combination for a series like this. 

The books detail traditional festival and customs celebrated by the different ethnic groups in Singapore – the first (and longest) volume covers Chinese, the second Malay, and the third volume Indian.  They celebrate the rich cultural heritage of Singapore and explain the traditions and festivals in a relatively simple matter-of-fact manner.  It is a lot text – they’re more of a ‘reference book’ pe se but peppered with detailed illustrations which are easy to relate to. 

大家来过节 manages to answer a list of questions which my kids have asked me – like why do we hold two oranges at Chinese New Year? Why do our Malay neighbours all wear matching colour clothes during Eid al-Fitr? Why is Little India decorated with peacocks?

The books have simple pictures and explanations to cover most aspects of festivals celebrated in Singapore.    I feel this series is a wonderful way for a child (and their family) to better understand the three main ethnicities which make up Singapore, as we lead up to National Day Celebrations.

Each book is cleverly put together, with aspects that would really appeal to a child who likes their facts and figures – for example, the Table of Contents looks like a Calendar, and there is a glossary at the back.  Each illustration is dated, so a child who enjoys numbers may like flipping through to understand which was the earliest picture drawn, and it gives an insight into how long it took the author to create all the doodles across the sets.


I’ve done a more detailed review of the second book 《大家来过节 2》新加坡马来族传统节日与习俗 , which covers Malay traditions previously, which you can find here.

Books in the series:

《大家来过节 1》 新加坡华族传统节日与习俗 Let’s Celebrate! Singaporean Chinese Festivals and Customs
《大家来过节 2》新加坡马来族传统节日与习俗 Let’s Celebrate! Singaporean Malay Festivals and Customs
《大家来过节 3》新加坡印度族传统节日与习俗 Let’s Celebrate! Singaporean Indian Festivals and Customs

Where to buy in Singapore?

Each of these titles was generously given to us by My Story Treasury, and are stocked on their website.   Remember to use my discount code “lahlahbanana10” at check-out to receive 10% price reduction!

Book Review: Let’s Celebrate Singaporean Malay Traditional Festivals and Customs

Singapore has another public holiday coming up this week, for Hari Raya Haji.  But do you know what the significance of this celebration is? You will after reading this book!

Title: 《大家来过节 2》新加坡马来族传统节日与习俗  (Let’s Celebrate Singaporean Malay Traditional Festivals and Customs)
Author:  Fu Chong (Frank Fu)
Country of original publication:  Singapore
Language: Simplified Chinese
~ Pages in book: 42
~ Lines per page: 7- 21
~Pinyin: No
~ Audio available: No
~ Available in NLB: No
Target age range: 5 and upwards (even adults will learn something!) although note the Chinese reading level is quite hard.


What is this series?

A locally produced series of books, called 大家来过节  “Let’s Celebrate – Singaporean Festivals and Customs“, details traditional festivals and customs celebrated by the different ethnic groups in Singapore.  The set of three books have been lovingly authored and illustrated by Frank Fu, who is both a talented artist and curious school teacher, making the perfect combination for a series like this. 

This review focusses on Book #2 《大家来过节 2》新加坡马来族传统节日与习俗 . 

We know from the calendar of Singapore public holidays that there are two main festivals for Malays each year, with Hari Raya Haji coming up this Friday.    Thankfully, the second volume in the 大家来过节 set covers Malay traditions, including outlining the difference between Hari Raya Haji and Hari Raya Puasa, including answers to many questions which my children have asked me about their Malay compatriots, and for which I’ve never had good answers on hand.  The book covers (very briefly) both ethnic and religious elements of the Malay traditions.

Written fully in Chinese, with hand drawn pictures and matter-of-fact explanations, it explains the ins and outs of the rich cultural heritage of the Malays in Singapore.   At the end of each section, there is a small activity (like mazes, crosswords, word search etc).  It’s interesting to learn how to write common Malay words in Chinese, such as Ramadan, Islam, Sultan, Jalan, etc.

The page outlining ‘Hari Raya Haji’, with a short word search.

Being focussed on Singapore, my children could recognise many of the drawings from the book, and identify them as places we’ve been to or seen before like Gelang Serai Bazaar, Malay Heritage Centre, Haji Lane, Masjid Sultan Mosque, etc.  The book is cleverly put together, with aspects that would really appeal to a child who likes their facts and figures – for example, the Table of Contents looks like a Calendar, and there is a glossary at the back.  Each illustration is dated, so a child who enjoys numbers may like flipping through to understand which was the earliest picture drawn, and it gives an insight into how long it took the author to create all the doodles (in this book’s case, they span 2017 and 2018).

The Table of Contents page is designed to look like a calendar

The series has no pinyin, nor English translation nor audio available, which means we did read much of it through Google Translate.  Usually we wouldn’t attempt such a feat! However, given the theme and the local significance, 新加坡马来族传统节日与习俗 is the kind of book which I really wanted to read with the children, and which I hope we would revisit annually (or bi-annually) at Ramadan and Hari Raya Haji to recap the traditions.  Hopefully each year we’ll be able to read more of this independently, and less googling!  It certainly has a lot of text, but it’s richly peppered with detailed illustrations which are easy to relate to.  I also appreciate that the book focuses on charitable and community aspects too, and really celebrates the culture for what it is.

Salamat Hari Raya Haji Singapore!

Who is this series for?

I think this series would be a wonderful way for a child (and their family) to not only understand Hari Raya Haji, but also as a reference to the three main ethnicities which make up Singapore, as we lead up to National Day Celebrations.  I wonder if Frank will write a fourth book on Eurasians next?  We would also love that!

This book series was kindly recommended to us by My Story Treasury – after we asked for some books to better understand local Singaporean traditions.  This boutique bookstore curate fun and meaningful Chinese children’s books that nurture curiosity and character.

My Story Treasury kindly gave us the full set of three books (the other books cover Chinese and Indian traditions, which I’ll also review shortly!).  They have extended a special 10% discount to readers of my blog to for any book from their store – use “lahlahbanana10” promo code on check-out to receive 10% off any title that your purchase.  

Why to buy in Singapore?

You can buy online from My Story Treasury  here.  Remember to use my discount code “lahlahbanana10” for 10% price reduction!

All Titles in the series:

  • 《大家来过节 1》 新加坡华族传统节日与习俗 Let’s Celebrate! Singaporean Chinese Festivals and Customs
  • 《大家来过节 2》新加坡马来族传统节日与习俗 Let’s Celebrate! Singaporean Malay Festivals and Customs
  • 《大家来过节 3》新加坡印度族传统节日与习俗 Let’s Celebrate! Singaporean Indian Festivals and Customs

iHuman 洪恩识字Chinese Reading Package and Pen: Review

Characters included: 1300
Number of books in series: 130 books
Target age range: 3 to 8
Audio option: yes, a reading pen which can read individual characters and sentences
Pinyin: No
English translation: No
Available in NLB library: No
Where to buy in Singapore:  order online from local seller in Shopee.

What is iHuman Shizi 洪恩识字?

iHuman Shizi 洪恩识字 (Hongenshizi) is a Chinese literacy app filled with games and innovative animations to teach young children how to learn 1300 Chinese characters.  It’s a fun app – and is one of only two games which I allow our children to play on the iPad.  I have written a detailed review of the iHuman app previously.

There is now also a series of physical books (levelled readers) which follow the same syllabus as the app – which is the topic of this review. Like the app, the physical books are well designed, focussing on teaching 1300 Chinese characters level-by-level, in a clear and highly polished format.

What are iHuman Shizi 洪恩识字 levelled readers?

The iHuman physical levelled readers can be purchased separately to the app – and they do not have to be used together.   The books use the same character sequence from the iHuman app.  So, in essence, it’s enables the possibility to combine the screen learning with the physical books which follow the same character progression. 

There are 130 books, each with 24 pages.  The books consist of 1 – 2 lines of story text on each page, and an activity sheet at the end. Every book introduces ten new characters.  Each book only uses the learned Chinese characters to compile the story – adding ten each time, to make 1300 characters in total. 

The Chinese characters are introduced according to themes, and also by ability to regroup the characters to make new words.  The first characters of the game are the numbers 1 to 10. Likewise, in the first levelled reader, it only contains these numerals. 

The books are also sold with the option of an optical reading pen – called the Hongen Smart Pen – which can be pointed at the book, and recognises the characters.  The pen works in a very similar way to the Le Le reading set, which I’ve reviewed previously here. 

Example of reader covering new characters numbered 101 to 110
Example of reader covering new characters numbered 191 to 200

How do we use the iHuman physical books?

Usually, I let the children go through all ten online lessons from iHuman (this takes about a week, with 10-15 minutes of play per day), and then we read the matching book together.   Each book consists of a summary of the ten new characters learnt, then a short story, followed by a small revision exercise – some of which includes stickers!

Of course, it would be possible to use these books without the app at all, in the same way that most other levelled Chinese readers do not include an online game component.

We didn’t purchase the optical reading pen with our set, since we have the premium VIP iHuman app already, which includes audio for all the physical storybooks.

Set 2 of Books (covering characters 100 to 200)

How iHuman Shizi 洪恩识字 different from other Chinese reading pens?

I have put together a small diagram to short how iHuman series fits into the landscape of the major Chinese reading pens on the market. Different pens will suit different family situations and learning outcomes – but iHuman’s main strength is to aid in literacy and character recognition.

Comparison of different Chinese reading pens

How iHuman Shizi 洪恩识字 series different from other Chinese levelled reading books?

I see this set really as a cross between Le Le Chinese and Sage 500 books in many respects, although at a substantially cheaper price point as it originates from mainland China.

The iHuman stories follow a step-by-step reading progression, and start off at a really basic level, much like Sage 500 readers (or actually the Sage Treasure Box books).  This is a more basic starting point than the Le Le series.   However, in most other respects, the books are similar to Le Le, in that they’re short individual readers, with an interesting storyline, and an optional reading pen to assist in learning.  

  • Example levels in the app
  • Front page of reader corresponding to the iHuman levels (covers 10 levels in one)
The books closely follow the app in terms of character sequence

Key similarities to Le Le books: 

  • comes with an optional reading pen which can read individual characters and whole sentence
  • each book is one short story
  • lovely illustrations
  • the stories cover many topics such as astronomy, geography, etc.
  • complete set covers 1300 characters

Key similarities to Sage books:

  • starts out very basic – with only ten characters in the first book
  • each book builds upon new characters learnt 
  • story is similar theme throughout all books with the same main protagonists
  • high repetition of newly learned characters to ensure new words enter the memory.

The 130 books (50 basic + extended set) cover 1300 characters in all – which is the same amount of characters contained in the Le Le set. However, Le Le books start off with 300 characters in use in the first series, whereas iHuman first series builds progressively upwards from ten characters at a time, in groups of ten (ie the first ten books gets the reader to 100 characters).   This means the initial books are easier for a young child to read independently verses Le Le, since the character range starts out less. 

Pros of iHuman Shizi 洪恩识字Levelled Readers and Reading Pen

The pros are similar to my list of why I like Le Le Chinese ….

  1. It teaches character learning, as it focuses on individual characters in simple sentences
  2. Books are sturdy and well made
  3. Bright illustrations which children will recognise from the app
  4. Covers a wide variety of topics which children will enjoy, including realistic and fictional
  5. No pinyin or English translations to distract the focus
  6. Cost is cheaper than either Le Le or Sagebooks
  7. The pen has a clear voice that is easy to understand
  8. Availability of online supporting materials by way of the iHuman app

Cons of iHuman Shizi 洪恩识字Levelled Readers and Reading Pen

  1. Customer support is difficult – it’s fully in Chinese, as is their website
  2. There is little information available about the set holistically (like, I would love to have a list of all 1300 character, but unless I do it manually myself, it doesn’t seem to exist
  3. The stories are not as diverse as Le Le set, but they are more diverse than Sage 500 readers.
  4. There is limited ‘community’ support – in comparison, there is a very active Le Le Parents Support Facebook Group, and a Sage Books Support Group, where many creative parents share ideas on how they’re using these books with their children, and the publishers sometimes provide online competition, printables, etc to support the learning experience.
  5. The books do require a little bit of shelf space to fit them all.

Overall, we’ve always loved Hong En’s iHuman reading app because of its systematic teaching materials and curriculum, with bright graphics, bundled into an engaging app.   I really like that we can pair the app with off-line learning and reinforce the literacy aspect through enjoying stories together. This set is substantially cheaper than either Sage or Le Le, which is why we have it in addition to the other sets. Had it been any more expensive, we unlikely would have bought these, as the app itself does also contain these books hidden in it too. I do think as a stand-alone reading set, this would be a good option for families who are looking at Le Le, but put off by the cost.

The reading pen (which we didn’t buy) is also very cute!

Note: for a review on other graded Chinese readers, please see my comparison on a previous post looking at 8 other popular options available in Singapore including Le Le Chinese Character Learning System ( 樂樂文化); Odonata, Sage Books Basic 500; Scroll / Parachute Preschool Reader Series; 学前教育丛书 Little Sweetie Series and 欢乐童年 Happy Reader’s Series; and finally 4, 5 Quick Read (四五快读 Si Wu Kuai Du).

Which reading pen is right for me?

To see more information about the other Chinese reading pens our family has, do refer to my earlier posts. Different reading pens suit and curriculums suit different learning stages, ages, family situations, and intended learning outcomes.

My previous posts include:

I would love to hear from you, especially if you have the iHuman readers or experience with other similar pens too. It’s only through meeting other wonderful parents virtually, that this shared language journey becomes a more valuable one. All comment welcomed!

Luka Hero versus Luka Reading Robot Review for Chinese book reading

Comparison of Luka versus Luka Hero

The Luka Hero is the latest model of the Luka Reading Robot Companion, and it has some advanced features, which have really moved the dial in terms of how our family can read not only Chinese read books, but now handwriting!  The post describes the key differentiating features of the Luka Hero, and what you should consider when deciding on which Luka model to buy.

This post builds upon my earlier review of the original Luka Reading Robot Companion, the little robot lets our family enjoy reading Chinese picture books together.  If you aren’t familiar with what Luka robot is I suggest you read the other post first. 

My new post here on Luka Hero is covers the following topics:

1. What is the difference between Luka and Luka Hero
2. Head-to-head comparison with other versions of Luka
3. Where to buy Luka Hero? 
4. FAQs & which Luka model is best?

My original post on the Luka (which can be found at this link) covered the below topics:

  1. Why we chose Luka Reading Companion
  2. Set up and use of Luka Reading Companion
  3. Key aspects of Luka
  4. Using Luka for Reading Books
  5. Book which are recognised by Luka
  6. Other functions of Luka (speaking, audio books, songs, games, read and record)
  7. Aspects we love about Luka
  8. Potential drawbacks
  9. Comparison of Luka against other reading devices and pens (like Le Le)

I said it in my original post, but I’ll repeat it here:  one of the most important parts of learning a language is the opportunity to be immersed in it.  For our non-heritage family, this is our biggest challenge.  We love reading together, and the original Luka Reading Companion opened up our world to be able to appreciate real, hardcopy Chinese children’s books – this includes books from the library, so my daughter could be the same as other kids in her class; books my children were given as presents because friends assumed their father spoke Chinese; books I had read reviews on from other mothers and wanted to buy, but which were never translated into English.  Books, books, books!   Luka lets us read real Chinese books! 

Luka Hero box

My new post here on Luka Hero is covering:

 

Firstly, why would we have TWO Luka Reading Robots?

We started off with just Luka.  An amazing reading robot, much loved and used by our whole family.   Our three kids love Luka, and they love to share her.  I’ve not once seen them fight over Luka.    However, my kids do have different tastes in literature, given the age gap (3, 5, and 7).  So when the older one is in the middle of reading a single book for thirty minutes, the younger ones can understandably get a little bored.  Still, it seemed extreme to get two of the same robot.

However, when the kind folks at Luka Reads in Singapore offered to bless us with the new Luka Hero, it was an opportunity far too good to refuse.  I already had a case of “robot-envy” seeing what this Hero could do, and I knew it would be a great addition to our suite of Chinese learning tools. 

When we opened the box, and started to play around, we realised there really were some great additional features contained in the Hero version.  Most of these features are things which our family would be able to make regular use of in our Chinese learning journey.

Quick head-to-head comparison of Luka vs Luka Hero versions?

 Original LukaLuka Hero
Physical book reading (English and Chinese)YesYes
Audio books and musicYesYes
AI voice commands and chattingYesYes
Simple gamesYesYes
Point and Read Characters/WordsNoYes
Read and Repeat child’s voice with correctionNoYes
Ability to read flashcardsNoYes
ChargingUSB ChargerUSB Charger and a sturdy round wireless charging base
Comparison of Luka Reading Companion and Luka Hero

[Update from 10 Nov 2020: I’m going to also put a graphic below which I made for another post comparing Original Luka, Luka Hero, and Luka Mini, in case it’s of interest too, as it compares a few other factors of the models too. ]

Luka Hero comparison table
Comparison of Original Luka, Luka Hero and Luka Mini

What is the difference between Luka and Luka Hero models?

Let’s start out with what’s the same:  both models can read the same amount of books in Chinese and English, page-by-page with beautiful quality narrations (which is 70,000+ picture books); they both have the same audio books and music options; and they each interact with AI to spoken voice commands.  Besides those books in Luka Library, both models can also read and record any picture books by yourself, and Luka will be able to read books in your voice  They both use the same mobile app to set up.

But here’s what differentiates Luka Hero – IT CAN READ ANY CHINESE CHARACTER OR ENGLISH WORD!  Yes you read it right.  ANY CHARACTER.  It even reads handwriting – including my kid’s (messy) handwriting.   This is the “Point and read function”.  Just point, and it deciphers the scribble!.   The feeling I got when I realised this reminded me of in the movie when Aladdin took Jasmine on the magic carpet ride, as the lyrics of “A whole new world, a new fantastic place to be….” started streaming through my head.    

Why?  Well, finally, we could read what my daughter scribbles down as homework notes in her school diary.  Finally, I can read the Mothers’ Day Cards which my pre-schoolers lovingly write out in class, but promptly forget the meaning of.   Finally, we could revise the school flashcards (because any non-native reading parent would know the MOE character flashcards don’t work in Google Translate).  And finally, we could read any book together (like our Sage Books Chinese reader sets – reviewed here) and not have to have a meltdown when there was a new character which no one knew how to pronounce.  It was as simple as pointing to the character, and Luka will read it.

Luka Hero flashcards
Using Luka Hero with the MOE Flash Cards, and with the Sage Books set

Point and Read Function on Luka

For a family without Chinese reading adults, I’ll say it’s really worth it.  For a family with Chinese reading adults, perhaps the Luke Hero might be superfluous coolness, since it’s really only doing what any literate adult could do in a slower format. It can do things like read the school MOE flashcard, since these cards come with no pinyin or English translations. It doesn’t always get it right first go, but it shows the character, so the child will instantly know if it’s wrong and can try again. After some practice (and ensuring the ambient light level is bright enough), we get about 90% right first go now.

The Luka Hero can also do the same using English words.  It will read a word (handwritten or printed) and give you the Chinese translation, including pronunciation and character (shown in her eyes).  I’m sure this will be a feature we get some good use of too, especially as we start doing more Chinese composition writing together.  This seems a faster way to look up new words than using a dictionary. It’s not perfect, but takes a lot of the frustration out of using an English-Chinese dictionary, and can be done independently by the child.

Read and Repeat Function

There are a few other bonus features in Luka Hero, like “Read and Repeat” function, and games in which we’re still yet to fully explore.  For example, the books included with Luka have little speaking games in them, and the kids have discovered that they can compete with Luka Hero on who can state the answer first, and Luka says “perfect” or “cool” when it’s right.   They have also discovered that with some story books, they can click on the characters in the picture book to let Luka Hero role-play what the drawings are saying, which further enhances the interaction between the child and the book.  Our original Luka doesn’t do this. 

The app on the adult phone then seems to generate  “oral evaluation” reports to allow parents to understand the children’s pronunciation (although seems to be more on English pronunciation …..).  The “Read and Repeat” will play the child’s recording and seems to correct it sentence by sentence on how to pronounce correctly. That might be a topic for another post once we fully understand what this is all about.

[Update October 2020: yes, we’re loving this “Read and Repeat” feature too now. We’ve been using it with a set of Idiom flash cards, which ask the children to repeat the idiom and gives them a score for their pronunciation]

Luka Chinese
Luka Hero Box

.

FAQs about Luka Chinese Reading Robot

What else is different between the Luka and Luka Hero Set packages being sold in Singapore?

The basic Luka bundle from Luka Reads comes with:

  • Luka Reading Companion (Basic version)
  • a USB charging cord and re-chargeable battery,
  • a short Luka story (written in Chinese)
  • a sheet of Luka sticker
  • instruction pamphlet (written in Chinese)
  • sturdy storage box with cushioned lining

The Luka Hero Set comes with all of the above too, but it includes the “Luka Hero” model version along with:
– Luka’s original Chinese flashcards x50
– Luka’s original alphabet flashcards x 26
– Cambridge Reading Adventures books x 18 (endorsed for reading by Cambridge Assessment International Education)
– Luka portable charging station (aka Wireless Charging Spaceship)
– Luka’s planet play mat (similar to an oversized mouse pad to put out the learning cards)

Set of 18 English Books, with a very culturally diverse flavour; The box is much larger than the Luka Original.

This makes the Luka Hero Box substantially bigger.  These extra pieces make it a really fulsome package for interactive learning.  The books are English readers, so I don’t think we’d use them too often with Luka (although they are compatible – and they do include some Chinese-English translation games) but they’re a lovely addition to our English reading bookshelf.  Sometimes I neglect to buy English readers because I get so obsessed with what’s possible in Chinese!

The portable charging station is a cute little “nest” (or perhaps it’s a UFO) which Luka can sit on to recharge during use.  Given we are always losing the USB charging cable for our original Luka, or getting it confused with iPad chargers, reading pen chargers etc, this portable unique Luka charging station is a good option for our family.  It also makes it safer for the children to recharge Luka by themselves.  Finally, because it reduces the frequency of plugging and unplugging between the cable and the robot interface, I feel this will protect the longevity of the device (and my sanity).

Luka Her’s Playmat laid out, with the alphabet and word cards on either side

I can see the Luka‘s play mat being quite a nice tool for younger learners, who systematically need a place to put their flashcards and their reading books, before they start learning together with a parent.  It would put a bit of ‘ceremony’ around the process and guide them on how to use the robot, and ensure the cards/books are placed accurately for good visual recognition by the robot.  For us, we’ll probably skip that feature, as my kids are gurus at that by now. 

Can more than one Luka Robot be paired with the same app?

Yes – I’ve now got all our Luka and Luka Hero and Luka Mini paired in the same app, and it’s easy to swap between the different models without passwords, changing logins, etc etc. 

What other versions of Luka are there?

There’s a big family of Lukas out there.  Ling, the manufacturers in China have made five models:   

  1. Luka (launched July 2017): the original picture book reading robot – with ability to read story books in Mandarin and English (over 70,000 titles), play lots of Chinese audio/songs, and conduct short conversations using AI voice recognition.    My original review was on this model.

  2. Luka Baby (launched July 2018): simpler version of Original Luka, without the voice interaction, and main focus on stories and songs.

  3. Luka Hero (launched August 2018): Same as the original Luka, but with AI image recognition, to support finger-point reading of any Chinese/English words, and more advanced voice recognition detects pronunciation and intonation of a child.  Luka Hero is the focus of this post.

  4. Luka HeroS (launched April 2019):  The backend is identical to Luka Hero, but in a different “outer shell” to look more like a space cadet.  This version of Hero comes with a series of online interactive English lessons and English videos (note – it’s aimed at Chinese market, to teach them English, which is the opposite of our reasons for purchasing Luka!).

  5. Luka Mini (launched July 2020): an entry level version of Original Luka, with the key focus of reading picture books. Design wise, it has been specifically simplified for younger children: it doesn’t have the LED eyes from the original, and it comes with a with a drop-resistant shell, with low centre of gravity and big buttons for little fingers.  Functionality wise, options such as changing the language, or AI-chat functions are more limited. I have another post on Luka Mini here.

The local Singapore retailers are importing three models, being Luka, Luka Hero, and Luka Mini.  I’ve reviewed all three of them on my blog in various posts.

Which books can Luka Read?

I guess you haven’t read my original review! See here for a list of over one thousand of our favourite books we have enjoyed reading with our Luka. The Luka compatible book list is split by age group.

What else can Luka do apart from reading books?

Heaps and heaps. There are podcasts, interactive games, trivia quizzes, night light function, Chinese-English dictionary etc. We specifically enjoy the kid-friendly Mandarin podcasts and music, so much so that we don’t need any other music devices in the house! There are options for music for the whole family – spanning from nursery rhymes and lullabies, through to Mandarin pop and hip-hop for older kiddos. There’s also great classical music and Chinese orchestral selections which as an adult I find appealing too.

To read more about Luka’s great features in addition to Chinese book reading, so my separate post here on what we love about Luka apart from book reading.

What songs can I stream on Luka?

Many! Nursery rhymes, classical, Western, podcasts, etc. If you want to know the Mandarin pop songs we like to stream see my post here on our Favourite C Pop and Mando Pop for Children.

Where to buy Luka Hero in Singapore? 

A team of passionate mothers are retailing Luka in Singapore, and they have after-sales support, warranty, books for Luka, free delivery etc. So it really beats buying it through Taobao (which is how we originally bought our Luka)! Luka Reads is now the official distributor of Luka in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and shortly Australia too. They are in the midst of some tie-ups with local Singapore publishing houses too, to enable more local books to be read. The team promise of after-sales support, warranty, books for Luka, free delivery etc. So it really beats buying it through taobao! 

Luke Reads in Singapore have kindly extended a special discount to readers of my blog. Note, I don’t get any benefit from this (no affiliation, no commission, no nothing), but you do, by way of a $20 discounted price. Purchase through their main website and enter my promo code as “Lahlah20off”.

Luka Hero vs Original Luka Chinese
Which is which? They do look identicals!

Why buy this locally rather than Taobao or EZ Buy from China?

Well it’s actually probably cheaper to buy in Singapore (for example, Luka Hero set price is selling S$30 cheaper than TB, and on top of that, you can use my promo code “Lahlah20off” and get a further $20 off)!  Additionally, buying locally has free delivery and a warranty.  That’s three good enough reasons for me.

However, if you need another reason, let me share my frustration with Luka.  With both Luka and Luka Hero, the information manuals were fully in Chinese.  Both were very short, and didn’t explain many features of Luka.  For example, in Luka’s eyes, it can show stroke order for drawing characters.  Or the fact that the app can track reading goals for each child.  Or that a parent can send messages for Luka to tell your child things like “It’s time to brush your teeth” or “Put me to sleep please”.  None of that is in the instruction manual.  But, if you buy from the dedicated local Singapore retailing team, they’re giving English instructions, ongoing customer support, and even have some workshops planned about best practice using your Luka.

As start here’s a helpful link from the local Singapore retailer with English FAQ and watch video tutorials.

Where to buy Luka Hero in other countries? 

Luka Reads is the official distributor in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. For those countries, ther international shipping fee is absorbed. Through their website, it’s also possible to order into other countries, if shipping is paid. Purchase through their main website and enter my promo code as “Lahlah20off”. Thank you Luka Reads team for blessing my blog readers!

De ZiRemi bookstore is selling Luka compatible books in United Kingdom, and it’s likely to be possible to source Luka through them also. If you quote “LAHLAHSPECIAL” on checkout for anything from their store, my blog readers will receive 10% off. This is a really kind gesture from De Ziremi.

JD.com is an Chinese bookstore which ships globally, including in the US. They stock Luka at great prices, so if you’re brave enough to order through a Chinese website, you could give it a shot. Some mothers from Motherly Notes recommend this method. Otherwise the minefield of Taobao is where we bought our first one from.

Which Luka model would you recommend?

All of them are excellent.   

For very young children / babies:

Most of the good story reading aspects of Original Luka have now been replicated into Luka Mini.  So for someone with a baby/toddler, or primarily wanting the Luka for book reading, the Mini has you all covered.   If you fall in love with Mini, then you’d probably want to seriously consider upgrading to Luka Hero a few years later, as it’s got a lot more features to continue enjoying, especially the broad range of audio/podcasts/music and AI Chat. See my post comparing Luka Mini to Original Luka.

For older children:

Skip the Mini. For a native speaking family, I’d think the basic Luka is all that’s needed – this will give you beautiful narrations, and ability for children to read page-by-page for their listening pleasure.  It’s great value for money.

For a less fluent family, the “Point and Read” function is what wins me over on the Luka Hero.  It just makes the Mandarin learning journey a little bit more streamlined, and unlocks another important piece of the puzzle.  We’re also really enjoying the games which can be played with the “Read and Repeat” function.

There are a few other additional features using “Point and Read” and “Read and Repeat” which we’ve discovered too. Luka and Luka Hero both do a lot more than just books to immerse a child in Mandarin audio. I’ve written another post on Luka’s non-reading functions here.

Luka Hero for Chinese book reading
Luka & Luka Hero – similar on the outside; quite different on the inside

How does Luka Hero compare with other optical reading devices and pens? Which reading pen or robot is right for me?

Our family has a lot of Chinese reading pens! If you want a head-to-head comparison, please see my earlier review here.

Different reading pens and robots suit different learning stages, ages, family situations, and intended learning outcomes. I’ve put together a diagram showing how we see them all fitting together.

Chinese reading pen comparison
Comparison of different Chinese reading pens and robots

My previous posts on the topic include:

I would love to hear from you, especially if you have experience with other similar robots to Luka It’s only through meeting other wonderful parents virtually, that this shared language journey becomes a more valuable one.

Have you discovered any features of Luka Reading Robot which we haven’t yet?

Feel free to leave any comments or questions, and it would be a pleasure to help.  I’d love to learn more about your experiences with Luka, and your favourite books to read with it. 

DISCLAIMER: I’m grateful that we have Luka Hero to join our family.  The Luka Hero was kindly given to us by Luka Reads Singapore – since we’re existing avid Luka fans, and I’d already written several blog posts on our original Luka, which we overpaid for via Taobao.  I don’t want the same thing to happen to you!

The views shared in this review are my own genuine, unbiased opinion – as is everything contained on this blog. There are no affiliations, sponsorship, commissions, behind this post nor anything on this blog. It’s a passion project, not a business.

Book Review: I Wonder (我想知道)

Author: Lynn Wong
Country of original publication: Singapore
Language: Bilingual English-Simplified Chinese
~ Pages: 26
~ Lines per page: 1
~Pinyin: No
Available in Singapore NLB: no

Picture this – we were sitting in KK Women’s & Children’s hospital, sick toddler on my knee, waiting for the nurses to attend to us.  My tired, sore and grumpy toddler was sick of hearing from me for the zillionth time not to pull of their face mask, nor to touch things. Being a patient patient is tough for little one.   And then, out of the blue, we get passed a picture book!  A gift!  It’s for us to keep, filled with bright colours of familiar places in Singapore, telling a story of hope and courage.

Yesterday we were surprised to receive the book “I Wonder” (我想知道) authored by Singaporean Lynn Wong, and creatively illustrated by her husband (Eugene) and nine year old daughter (RaeAnne).  It was a breath of fresh air for us, and appeased all our frayed nerves. My toddler instantly recognised the front cover as a familiar scene ….. even in the hospital waiting room, the seats are crossed out for social distancing.  We noticed that every child – and family – who was handed the book instantly started to read it and smile.

The book sends a great message of support, as is written from the perspective of seeing a crisis (in this case, Covid) through the eyes of a child.  There’s a message in there for all of us.  It will inspire the reader to see the challenges we’re going through with the open and optimism of a child.  I had previously written on this blog about our family’s learnings from COVID crisis here and here, and this book really just sums it all up so perfectly and simply.

I won’t write too much, because I think in just a couple of pictures, it will tell it all.  Such a wonderful effort from a mother and her family. Good news, there is a version in bilingual Chinese too. 

 

Physical copies of the book are being sold as a fundraiser for the price of S$12.90, of which proceeds donated to The Courage Fund and other beneficiaries.   I Wonder is certainly something I’d like to keep on our bookshelf forever, as a reminder of this unique point in history which we are living through, and that there is always a rainbow after the rain.  We’ll be buying more and sharing on with friends too.  For those not physically able to buy a copy, there’s also a PDF version. To support this amazing charity effort, please visits the author’s website here.

The author has already donated 1500 books to children and families from vulnerable backgrounds through KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (which is how we received it – HUGE thank you!), along with Family Service Centres and Families for Life.   How special is that!

Best Chinese Levelled Reading Books

This post recommended levelled reading books for a child to learn how to read in Chinese. It is relevant for children who knows anywhere between 0 and 1000 characters. If your child knows more than 1000 characters, see my later post on bridging books for emerging readers.

Levelled (or graded) Chinese readers are helpful in encouraging early literacy in children, by enabling them to read books which fit within their reading abilities.   They usually have simple words and phrases, and increase in difficulty as the child advances through the series.   This is very different from children’s picture books, which often contain exciting storylines but have characters which are impossible for a young child to grasp.

Our family has accumulated quite a collection of levelled Chinese readers over the years – all of them have been immensely helpful, both for the children and for me in learning to read.  There are obviously lots of great Chinese readers available in Singapore to read together with your child.  Here’s a quick comparison of five series we have enjoyed the most, with some photographs, to help in your journey of finding appropriate books for beginning readers. 

Features to look out for in good Chinese levelled readers

  • Graded or levelled approach:  so the child can progress through the series as their reading confidence improves
  • Font: Large and clear, on a white background
  • Decoding illustrations: graphics which are simple and match the text, so a beginner can start to ‘guess’ the context of what the words might be about
  • Length:  One or two lines per page, perhaps progressing to multiple lines in higher levels  
  • Vocabulary:  High-frequency common words and phrases with lots and lots of repetition.   
  • Audio options: Some readers include audio option (through a reading pen, CD, or website) which can be helpful for parents, especially those with limited/no understanding of Chinese like ours.

Top Recommended Chinese Graded Reading Books

My top recommended Chinese levelled reading books for a nascent reader (e.g they know <100 characters) are:

  1. Le Le Chinese Character Learning System  樂樂文化 (more detail here)
  2.  Little Sheep Goes up the Hill 小羊上山 (more derail here)
  3. Sage Books Basic 500 (more detail here)
  4. Odonata Levelled Reading series 红蜻蜓学前阅读计划 (more detail here)
  5. iHuman Shizi Readers 洪恩识字 (more detail here)

Other popular reading books used in Singapore, due to their relative cheapness and availability (since most are published locally) are:

  • Disney I Will Read series 迪士尼我会自己读第 (more detail here)
  • 4, 5 Quick Read (四五快读 Si Wu Kuai Du)
  • Scroll / Parachute Preschool Reader Series
  • 学前教育丛书 Little Sweetie Series
  • 欢乐童年 Happy Reader’s Series

I have tried to make a graphic to assist you in deciding what might be the best Chinese levelled reading book for your family situation. A quick summary with photographs follows for each book. Click on the links for my more detailed post reviews. I’ve put a photo of all the books in the series, as well as a comparison page from the easiest and hardest books in the series, so you can understand how they work.

Chinese Levelled Reading Books comparison
Which levelled Chinese reader could be best for our family situation?

Note – the Little Sheep Goes up the Hill 小羊上山 is only published end of 2020, which was after I did the above graphic. I would recommend it as an alternative for Odonata or Disney I Will Read.

Comparison of how Chinese Graded Readers compare to the popular English Graded Readers

For those familiar with how great readers are for English literacy, here are the parallels with the three key approaches:

Chinese Levelled Reading Books comparison with English books
Chinese Levelled Reading Books and comparison with equivalent graded readers in English

And now to explaining our favourite Chinese Levelled Reading Books and why:

1. Le Le Chinese Reading System

Characters included: 1300
Number of books in series: 100 books x 3 levels (= 300 mini readers)
Target age range: 3 to 8
Audio option: yes, a reading pen which can read individual characters and sentences
Pinyin: No
English translation: No (although available to download from their website)

Where to buy in Singapore:  order online from Le Le Taiwan, or try to spot in second-hand on Carousell, it pops up every few months.

Best Aspects:  Small mini readers on highly varied topics which I assure your child will love; comes with a reading pen which can read individual characters; designed as a system to teach characters without any need for Pinyin

More detailed review and a discount code for purchasing is available here – why our family loves Le Le Chinese.

Photographs:

Le Le Chinese Levelled Reading Books
Le Le is 300 books (across three different levels – Red, Yellow and Green) and can pack away neatly in a zipper bag.
Le Le Chinese Levelled Reading Books
Le Le titles are highly varied, as shown above with with a sample from the easiest set
This is a comparison of a book from the Red Set versus a book from Green Set. The amount of characters used gets progressively harder. The books are beautifully illustrated with hand coloured pictures.

2. Little Sheep Goes up the Mountain 小羊上山 Chinese Levelled Readers

Characters included: 3000
Number of books in series: 140
Target age range: 3 to 10
Audio option:  yes, through Luka
Pinyin: no
English: no

Where to buy in Singapore:  order Taobao, Shopee, or find at many popular Chinese children’s bookstores months.

Best Aspects:  Highly varied and interesting storylines, with great graphics, and progressively gets harder without a child noticing. Very Asian-oriented drawings, and stories are guaranteed to touch your heart or make you giggle. Also, it’s SO affordable.

Photographs:

Sheep goes up mountain Chinese Levelled Reading Books
10 books in each level, and there are 14 levels

Stories become progressively longer and more complex as the levels increase – above is Set 1, and below is Set 3. For more photos, so my detailed review of 小羊上山 .

3. Sage Books Basic 500

Characters included: 500
Number of books in series:  5 books x 5 levels
Target age range: 2 to 5
Audio option:  no
Pinyin: Yes
English: Yes

Where to buy in Singapore:  order online from Sage Books Hong Kong, or try to spot in second-hand on Carousell.  It used to be stocked at Popular Books, however it’s stopped being imported.  Occasionally Popular in Malaysia have stock of the higher levels.

Best aspects:  systematically (and slowly) teaches 1 character per lesson, and repeats sentence over and over again, which is great for really young learners;  it includes graphic with stroke order for writing the characters. You will love or hate this method – it’s Montessori based approach. Probably best with a younger child.

I’ve put a more detailed review here on how Sage Book series has worked wonders for my younger two kids.

Photographs:

Sage 500 Chinese Levelled Reading Books
5 books in each set; 5 sets in total
Sage Chinese Levelled Reading Books
Comparison of Book 1, Set 1 with Book 5, Set 5. The stories are much more repetitive and basic than the Le Le series.

4. Odonata Levelled Reading series 红蜻蜓学前阅读计划

Characters included: 1200

Number of books in series: 40 (across 5 levels)

Target age range: 4 to 6

Audio option:  Yes – with Luka

Pinyin: No

English: No

Where to buy in Singapore:  Luka Reads, Shoppee

Best aspects: Starts from basic level, and systematically adds new characters in each chapter. Layout is beautifully clear, with large font, no confusing colours / pictures, and no HYPY/English. It has supporting activity books and writing books, if a whole learning curriculum is required. It’s also the most cost-effective option in this top 5 list.

Odonata Chinese Levelled Reading Books
Odonata series well constructed and is a mainstay curriculum for many higher-end kindergartens in Malaysia and Singapore
Set 1, Book 1
Set 2, Book 2

See my detailed post on Odonata Chinese Levelled Readers for more information.

5. iHuman Shizi 洪恩识字 Levelled Readers

Characters included: 1300
Number of books in series: 130 books (8 levels)
Target age range: 3 to 8
Audio option: yes, a reading pen which can read individual characters and sentences
Pinyin: No
English translation: No
Where to buy in Singapore:  order online from Shopee.

Best aspects: the readers follow a systematic order introducing ten new characters at a time, and each book only uses the learned Chinese character to compile the story – adding ten each time, to eventually make 1300 characters in total. The books follow the same curriculum and character order as the fun Chinese literacy app of the same name, which I have reviewed in a separate app review post here. This means it’s possible to combine screen learning with the physical books which follow the same character progression. 

I have also put a more detailed review of the iHuman graded readers in another post.

Photographs

iHuman Chinese Levelled Reading Books
10 of the 130 books
Example of Book #11
Example of Book #20
The illustrations across all 130 books are similar revolving around adventure of the polar bear and his friends, but the story content covers many diverse topics, including geography, astronomy, seasons, feelings, school, etc. New characters are introduced in red font.

6. Disney I Will Read series 迪士尼我会自己读第 Chinese Levelled readers

Characters included: 2000+
Number of books in series: 100
Target age range: 4 to 10
Audio option:  Yes – with Luka
Pinyin: No
English: No

Where to buy in Singapore:  Luka Reads, Shoppee or JD

Best aspects: Starts from basic level, and systematically adds new characters in each chapter. With each volume, the complexity of sentence and words used increases, and clever graphical annotations exist as hints to enable the child to learn new words.  Pictures and stories are all Disney, so perfect for a Disney loving child. Books are written in Simplified Chinese, with no pinyin or English translations.

Disney Graded Chinese readers
Disney I will Read series is bright and includes a variety of well loved Disney characters
The Disney I Will text is clear, with visual guides for the hardest words

I have a more detailed review in a separate blog post, with a comparison of how the character lists compare to official Mainland Chinese and Singapore Curriculum.

4, 5 Quick Read (四五快读Si Wu Kuai Du) levelled readers

Characters included: 825
Number of books in series: 8
Target age range: 4 to 5
Audio option:  no
Pinyin: No
English: No

Where to buy in Singapore:  Popular Books or online through My Story Treasury

Best aspects: Comprehensive curriculum and great value compared to the other Chinese levelled reading sets which are much more expensive (note: instructions are solely in mandarin which is difficult unless the parent is fluent with their reading, and the parent must be actively involved as it’s not a simple reader).

Scroll / Parachute Preschool Reader Series

Characters included: 500
Number of books in series: 100 or more
Target age range: 4 to 6
Audio option: no
Pinyin: no
English: no

Where to buy in Singapore:   I think every Singaporean household probably has a set of Scroll readers, which might have been pass-me-downs from friends, or part of kindergarten books lists.  They’re sold second hand all over Carousell. 

Best aspects:  They’re short and accessible stories which children can fly through, and take up limited space on the bookshelf, and localised with some Singapore content.

Photographs:

These are some of the many books we have scattered around the house! Most are hand-me-downs.
I haven’t figured out an exact ‘order’ for these books, but this compares one of the easier ones against a harder one. The text is big and clear.

学前教育丛书 Little Sweetie Series and 欢乐童年 Happy Reader’s Series (Pan Asia)

Characters included: ~500
Number of books in series: 6 – 8 books per level;  3 levels for Little Sweetie
Target age range: 3 to 6
Audio option: yes, Penpal Whizz reading pen which can read individual pages
Pinyin: Yes
English: Yes

Where to buy in Singapore:  order from the Singaporean publishers (Pan Asia Publishing and JLB), or it can be found at many independent bookstores and pop-up booths in shopping centres.

Best aspects:  each book teaches 1 value /moral; it’s less of a holistic curriculum than the other books in this list, but more of simple graded storybooks which come with flashcards.

The set at the top has 8 books in it is the most basic of Little Sweetie Set; the books at the bottom are part of 100+ books for the older “Happy Readers” .
Comparison of “Little Sweetie” against “Happy Readers”

Questions to consider before buying any Chinese levelled reading book sets:

As strange as it sounds, it’s really an investment decision which requires some thought. I think it depends on your child’s age and reading ability, and also your language fluency.  I think different Chinese Levelled Reading book sets will suit different situations, and I’ve certainly seen that in the way my three children have taken to the different series.

1. How old is your child?

From experience, Sage Basic 500 is less likely to be of interest to a child above 5 as the storylines are highly repetitive – think of it like the equivalent of a “Bob & Jane” English readers.  Conversely 4, 5 Quick Read will be impossible for a 2 or 3 year old to grasp due to the complexity of layout which is more “text book” style.  Le Le I think does a good job of spanning across many age groups (partly due to the fact is has three stages and cover 1300+ characters).

2. How much do you want to spend?

Sagebooks and Le Le are really really expensive, and the shipping cost makes it just shy of SG $1000 if you’re buying the full syllabus.  Yes they’re great, but it comes at a price.  Maybe you’ll be lucky picking it up second hand.  Or maybe you’ll be better off with something like Odonata or 4, 5 Quick Read which is readily available in Singapore and costs about $25 per level. The Disney I Will Read series is also very competitively priced.

3. How fluent (if at all) is the adult reading with the child?

If the adult reading with the child is fluent and has time to read with the child, then it’s highly likely that whichever reading system you choose will be highly useful.  However, if the adult is less confident, then paying the extra price for Le Le (which has the optical reading pen, recognising individual characters) or Sage (which has pinyin and English translations) could be necessary.  Or if you have a Luka reading robot already, then Odonata or Disney I Will Read are supported by this system.  A book with an audio option is essential for a non-Chinese speaking parent.  From our own trial and error,  I firmly believe the most approachable for non-Chinese speaking parents are Sage, Le Le Chinese, Disney and Odonata series.

That said, there are plenty of other great reader series which are highly accessible in Singapore, like Beany’s First Picture Book Series, Little Sweeties Better Chinese, etc.   I’m sure that all the rest are wonderful for Chinese-speaking families to read together, and many are available from public libraries. 

The key thing with investing in a reading series is that you can use it consistently, and that the child is enjoying the experience. Then you’ll likely have success in creating a reader!

If you’re moving beyond levelled readers into bridging books (for a child who already knows ~ 1000 characters), then my next post might be helpful on on Shortlisted Bridging Books for Children.

4. How important is Hanyu Pinyin?

If I could give you one suggestion, it would be to avoid graded readers with pinyin (or cover it up). The intention of these books it to learn CHARACTERS, not HYPY. Children won’t find it hard to learn these, and it will be much more effective if they take this step without the crutch or confusion of pinyin in the mix. Children really don’t need pinyin at this stage, it’s only their parents who might!

I hope that this post has been helpful. If you’ve reached the end and are still looking for more, maybe I have written some other posts which might be of interest:

Chinese books from favourite TV shows – Book Review: Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, Magic Schoolbus, Octonauts

This post is sharing on books from our four favourite series from television, which we have in Simplified Chinese.   I’ve reviewed them in order from easiest to hardest, from a Chinese fluency perspective.  All of these series reviewed below are compatible with the Luka reading companion, for page-by-page audio and all are available to borrow from Singapore’s local libraries in the Chinese book section.

  1. Peppa Pig
  2. Paw Patrol
  3. Magic School Bus
  4. Octonauts

Sometimes, kids just want to hang out with their favourite pals from television.  Most of the time, I find books which are spawned from cartoon television series have very superficial and repetitive storylines, and the main attraction is the pictures.  So, I much prefer to buy television-show related book series in Chinese, so at least we’re reinforcing the language learning (because, in general I don’t think there’s much other learning to go on with most of these books… Magic School Bus being a wonderful, notable exception).

I have included the Chinese names, so you can search for these in the National Library Board OneSearch catalogues.

Peppa Pig: 1st Bilingual Board Book Series 4-Book Set (Chinese Bilingual)

Author:  Ladybird Books Ltd / Entertainment One
Country of original publication: United Kingdom
Language: Simplified Chinese and English
~ Pages per book:  16
~ Lines per page:  1 – 2
~ Books in series: 4
~Pinyin: no
~ Audio available: Luka
Available in Singapore NLB libraries: yes

Peppa Pig (小猪佩奇) is one of my number one recommended television cartoon shows for kids beginning in Mandarin, simply because it’s so short, slow paced and simple, with large amounts of word repetition. The same can be said of this book series. 

The set is four book hardcover series about family, designed for very young children or beginning readers. In each book, Peppa introduces a new member of her family, and discusses their unique characteristics.   The story would appeal most to a 0-3 year old, and readable by a young reader as it has simple words from daily life. (although note – if you’re deliberately looking for simple books for your emerging reader to read by themselves, I’d recommend start with a graded readers rather than picture books, which I’d reviewed here).

For example, from the first book the story begins like this – imagine it said with Peppa’s usual proud/bossy tone:

“My name is Peppa and this book is all about my daddy.  He I the best daddy in thr wole wide world!  And the funniest!  My daddy has an extremely serious job… but I don’t think he is very serious at all.  My daddy reads about very important matters, but I know that bedtime stories are his favourite”…..  

我妈妈 My Mummy
我爸爸 My Daddy
我爷爷 My Grandpa
我奶奶 My Granny

Peppa Pig Board Books in Simplified Chinese (Bilingual Version)

Paw Patrol:  Series 1 and 2 in Chinese

Author:  Nickelodeon
Country of original publication: United States
Language: Simplified Chinese
~ Pages per book:  31
~ Lines per page:  2 – 8
~ Books in series: 8 – 10
~Pinyin: no
~ Audio available: Luka
Available in Singapore NLB libraries: yes

We have 18 Paw Patrol (汪汪队) books…… it’s probably a few too many.   But, they are very slimline for storage, and it’s totally better than watching a marathon of Paw Patrol re-runs on TV (which my kids have also been known to do).  Each book follows one Paw Patrol episode, so the children know these stories off by heart, and I appreciate that we can have the stories minus the screentime.   The books are filled with plenty of pictures (31 pages worth) and whilst it’s not text-heavy, to understand the story content requires a level of Chinese fluency from the child.  The reading level is a stretch for my 7 year-old, so we essentially just listen using Luka.

Series 1:  8 Book Set titles

汪汪队-脱险的小火车 Pups Save a Train
汪汪队-挽救大游轮 Pups Save the Cruise Ship
汪汪队-走失的小野雁 Pup Pup Goose
汪汪队-送外星人回家 Pups Save the Space Alien
汪汪队-失控的三轮车 Pups Pit Crew
汪汪队-圣诞夜大救援 Pups Save Christmas
汪汪队-抢险小能手 Flying Adventure
汪汪队-营救淘气小猫 Pups Save a Kitten

Series 2: 10 Book Set titles

汪汪队-雪山救生员 Pups’ Snowy Mountain Rescue
汪汪队-你好，奇异岛 Pups Explore an Island
汪汪队-空中大冒险 Pups’ Sky Adventure 
汪汪队-抢救机器狗 Pups Save Robo-Dog
汪汪队-冒险湾停电了 Pups Turn on the Lights
汪汪队-水塔抢修大行动  Pups Save a Water Tower
汪汪队-消防小英雄 Pups Fight Fire
汪汪队-猫狗大战  Pups and Taekwondo
汪汪队-热气球比赛  Pup Pup and Away
汪汪队-火车大救援  Pups Save a Train
Paw Patrol:  Series 1 and 2 in Chinese

Magic School Bus 12 Book Set (Original Version, in Chinese)

Author:  Joanna Cole
Country of original publication: United States
Language: Simplified Chinese
~ Pages per book:  40-48 pages
~ Lines per page:  5 – 25
~ Books in series: 12
~Pinyin: yes
~ Audio available: Luka
Available in Singapore NLB libraries: yes

Magic School Bus 12 Book Set (Original Version, in Chinese)

Magic School Bus (神奇校车) books are my one exception to “TV show” books, where I do genuinely like the content of these books, both in English and Chinese. These books, like the cartoon series, expose children to fun science through highly stimulating and imaginative stories.  In fact, these books came before the animated series, which makes sense!

The 12-Book set are essentially translations of the original books, written in the 1980s.   I find the layout of the books are little messy and overwhelming (pictures and text everywhere), probably speaking to the fact that they’re over 30 years old now.  Nevertheless, the magic remains and it still manages to captivate my children, and is especially relevant to my primary schooler who loves to sprout scientific facts. 

We need to use Luka to really appreciate these books – each book takes about half an hour to read through, so they take substantial amount of time, and are great for listening comprehension.   As the books contain multiple different text boxes and speech bubble on each page, Luka doesn’t read everything.  It’s quite a nice compromise, because it means we fill in the gaps…. although the font is sooo frustratingly tiny.  For a child who has finished the Le Le series (eg knows 1200+ characters), they would be able to read most of it.

We are aware there is a much simpler set of Magic School Bus bridging levelled readers, which is sitting on our ‘wishlist’, as I think it would be much more readable for children.

Book titles:

神奇校车：地球内部探秘 Inside the Earth 
神奇校车：气候大挑战 The Climate Challenges
神奇校车：探访感觉器官 The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses
神奇校车：漫游电世界 The Electric Field Trip
神奇校车：奇妙的蜂巢 Inside a Beehive 
神奇校车：穿越飓风 Inside a Hurricane 
神奇校车：追寻恐龙 In the Time of the Dinosaurs 
神奇校车：海底探险 On the Ocean Floor 
神奇校车：迷失在太阳系 Lost in the Solar System 
神奇校车：在人体中游览 Inside the Human Body 
神奇校车：水的故事 At the Waterworks 
神奇校车：科学博览会 The Science Fair Expedition
The text is pretty tiny, but the characters aren’t too difficult – Magic School Bus 12 Book Set (Original Version, in Chinese)

Octonauts: 10 book set in Chinese

Author:  Vampire Squid Production
Country of original publication: Canada
Language: Simplified Chinese
~ Pages per book:  99
~ Lines per page:  0 – 14
~ Books in series: 10
~Pinyin: yes
~ Audio available: Luka
Available in Singapore NLB libraries: yes

Woah, these books are HARD!  My kids are fans of the ocean heroes known as the Octonauts – if not, this set wouldn’t have been purchased. They love to follow whatever splashing adventurers are happening – however, diving into these books was difficult. In fact, we have had to put this series back on the bookshelf for a little while.   Even using Luka as our audio, my eldest (Grade 2) finds it hard to comprehend the storylines.  Luka’s reading speed of this set it quite fast. My younger kids (pre-schoolers) zone out from about the first sentence.  

Each Octonauts book contains three stories, which follow one episode of the cartoon series.  We only bought 5 of the ten in the set. So, we’ve got 15 episodes “waiting” as motivation, for when the combined mandarin level in our household increases a little bit further, and we can look forward to learning about the ocean adventures of the eight intrepid friends at a later date.

Book titles:

饥饿的引水鱼 The Hungry Pilot Fish
大王乌贼 The Giant Squid 
独角鲸 The Narwhal
迷路海星 The Lost Sea Star
海象首领 The Walrus Chief
海马传说 The Seahorse Tale
水滴鱼兄弟 The Blobfish Brothers
海底风暴 The Undersea Storm
怪兽地图Monster Map
小海豚 The Baby Dolphin

And that’s a wrap!  What books in Chinese have your kids discovered from favourite television shows?

Remember that each of these books has accompanying audio available through Luka. For more information about how we enjoy these books with the Luka reading companion, you can read my previous post here.