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Review: Luka Reading Robot for Chinese

What is Luka Reading Robot?

This is my honest review of Luka Reading Robot, and why we love it. This post is not sponsored and we bought our original Luka for full price in 2020 (and 2.5 years later, we are still smitten with it).

If you can’t read Chinese but want to be able to enjoy reading Chinese story books with your children, then Luka is the solution. It also plays great music too! Luka Reading Robot is a clever – and super cute – owl-shaped robot which will narrate physical picture books to your family, which are written in either Simplified Chinese or English.

This official Luka AI Reading Companion manual claims that this owl will “read aloud books put in front of him, page by page, in any order” with “over 50,000 Chinese and 8,000 English picture books”. These might be the words of the manufacturer, but I’ll vouch that they’re true. Your child will be able to experience quality bilingual Chinese literature recorded by native speakers.

This post is an in-depth review of our Luka AI Reading Companion, which we bought and paid full price for online. As a family without any native Chinese-speaking parents, Luka’s been a little hero in enabling our children to read broader Chinese children’s literature, without the need for screen time, and had made borrowing Chinese books from the library a real possibility.

Luka is the flagship product of a relatively new company (started in 2017) called Ling, based in Beijing. The company was founded by an IT entrepreneur, who worked with publishers and professional narrators to develop a vast range of audio content in its cloud library. The product to date has largely aimed at the mainland Chinese audience, selling over 1 million units in three years. It appears relatively unknown outside of China.

This post will cover:

Why we chose Luka Reading Companion
Set up and use of Luka Reading Companion
Key aspects of Luka Reading Robot
Using Luka for Reading Books
Book which are recognised by Luka Reading Robot
Other functions of Luka (speaking, audio books, songs, games, read and record)
Aspects we love about Luka Reading Companion
Potential drawbacks
Comparison of Luka Reading Robot against Le Le and other reading pes
Q&As and where to buy Luka Reading Companion in Singapore

Note: there is a newer model called Luka Hero, which I have reviewed separately. But I suggest you stay reading this current page first, to understand what Luka is capable of.

Why we chose Luka Reading Robot?

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 one of our biggest challenges. We love reading books together, but Chinese children’s books are largely out of our realm. My elder daughter can read basic characters independently (thanks to the Le Le Reading Pen, which I reviewed separately in other post here) and can read simple books to her younger siblings. However, we struggle to keep up with their combined appetite to read more complex and longer books.

I know there are plenty of great reading apps and online books with Chinese audio, but our preference is certainly reading physical books: tangible books which the children can have on their bookshelf, and pull out and just enjoy. Luka AI Reading Companion is the closest we have to enabling this.

Before we ordered Luka, I asked a lot of Chinese-speaking friends in Singapore if they’d heard of it or knew anything else similar. Most were skeptical of the concept, and a couple had even used other forms of AI-robots and felt they were largely a waste of money. Still I was intrigued. For us, the urge to get the Luka reading robot wasn’t an issue of “it’s a cool robot but not essential” but “how can I get someone to read real books to my kids in Chinese”. So we ordered one from China, waited months for the shipping, and fell in love upon opening.

In summary, it’s been a very cool addition to assist in enjoying Chinese literature with our children, and I see it being a valuable tool for parents who aren’t fluent in their Chinese reading, or who unfortunately don’t have the time to read regularly with their children.

What is in the box?

Luka comes with:

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

Set up and use of Luka

Luka needs to be paired with a phone which has the Luka Reading App installed (available for both iOS and android). The app gives Luka Robot access to your wifi, which is needed in order to read the books initially. The app also enables you to search for book titles to check if they’re Luka-approved, and also select different audio options (eg change default language from Chinese to English).

The app has an English version, and so starting up and pairing Luka was simple. The only niggle was needing to use Google Translate to read the instructions sheet from the box itself, but it was fairly simple and self-explanatory.

Key aspects of Luka

On/off: hold the tail

Volume change: turn the tail

To read books: press wing on your right

To listen to music/rhymes: press wing on your left

Using Luka for reading Chinese books

To read the book, you simply place the book on table or ground about 4 centimetres in front of Luka, and press its right wing. Luka’s eyes (containing an HD camera in forehead) will scan the cover, download the book’s audio, and within a few minutes it will begins to read the book. The unique aspect is that Luka will read whichever page the child is on, one-at-a-time. After reading the page, it gives a little soft click, indicating to the child to turn the page. It’s possible to skip pages and go backwards, and Luka will recognise where the child is at, even if turning out of order. Once a book is downloaded, Luka will recognise it whilst off-line, so it can be read in future without wifi.

Luka is very intuitive for a young child to get the hang of, and all of our children can use her independently to read and play. In fact, they’re much better at using Luka than we are (and can understand her Chinese verbal instructions), so I usually leave it to them to explore.

I would say that our children spend about 20 minutes a day with Luka reading 1or 2 short books before bedtime. On a weekend, we sometimes would play for up to an hour, and delve into longer length books.

Which books does Luka recognise?

A lot, is the answer!

We have trialled her with many things from our existing bookshelf. She knows more of them than not, especially the classical stories. It’s as simple as putting the book beside Luka, and if she doesn’t know it, her eyes will flash yellow and she says in Chinese “Sorry, I do not know this book yet!”. Then, we move on to another book.

For buying new books in Chinese, or borrowing them from the local library, I do now check the titles in advance on my phone, to ensure it will be readable at home. The list of books keeps growing daily – it’s gone from 30,000 a year ago, to well over 50,000 Chinese titles now.

I am trying to add a few personal reviews of our favourite Luka-compatible books on this blog. I’ve put a detailed list of 1000+ Luka compatible books on another page.

As a few examples in Chinese, for younger kids you can try Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol or Tatsuya Miyanishi’s Tyrannosaurus Series, or Mo Willems’ Elephant and Piggie. For older kids, perhaps 米小圈上学记 Mi Xiao Quan’s School Diary or Magic School Bus Chinese Series or 100 Storey House.

For wider list, check out my full Luka reading list with reviews, as we’ve read and enjoyed hundreds of books with Luka now, and I’m keep updating the reading list!

Using Luka Reading Robot for other things

Luka Reading Robot has a lot of other features which my children love as well:

Random speaking and phrases: the first day we unboxed Luka, and after we’d read 5+ books already, one of my kids literally spent the next 2 hours sitting beside the baby owl babbling in Chinese back and forth. Apparently, the conversation was a sensible one. The only bit I could understand was when the Chinese stopped, and my daughter asked in English “Luka will you stay with me forever?”. Luka responds if her tummy is rubbed or head is patted, with cute little phases. You can also ask trivia like “What is the weather in Tokyo today?“, or “What is the time in Beijing?“.

Song playing and podcasts: there is a “push feature” where the adult can push audio (books, songs, nursery rhymes) from their phone to play through Luka as a speaker. This has been great for us in using as bedtime music, and also to bring up “Happy Birthday” and “Clean up” music when needed. There are lots of options for this, in both Chinese and English audio.

This more I’ve researched this feature, the more impressed I’ve become. Initiaitally, I thought it was only fodder for toddlers, with no really “dancey” upbeat songs. Oh how wrong I was! There an endless around of excellent kid-friendly music and Mandarin podcasts for the whole using this function – 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. Not to mention the wonderful kids science podcasts!

Luka Reading Robot app — Luka app audio option for additional music and audio books

Record a story with your own voice: this isn’t a feature we’ve used, nor do we plan to use. We bought got Luka reading robot primarily for the Chinese audio, which is something we cannot replicate in person. However, for parents who do want to record a story in their own voice, they can snap photos of the pages of any books, and then record your voice reading each page. It’s simple to do, and then you can add extra books into your collection. I think this would be a really sweet thing for a grandparent or a distanced family member to do. I suppose a Chinese tutor could do the same thing quite quickly if there was a favourite book that the child wanted to hear.

Games: I was hoping my kids would never discover this. But, kids being kids have a knack of really exploring all the functions of their new toys really quickly. By shaking Luka from side to side, her eyes turn into a slot machine game. Thankfully, it’s good for about 30 seconds of laughs, but doesn’t distract from Luka’s real literary purpose. There are also some Chinese idiom games hiding somewhere in Luka.
The list goes on, with night lights, board games, dictionary, etc. See updated post here on other favourite features in addition to the basic book reading functions.

Aspects we love about Luka Reading Robot:

Compatible with English book versions: We (obviously) have a much larger collection of English picture books than Chinese ones. We’ve discovered that for many of our classical children’s books (Harry and the Dirty Dog, Farmer Duck, Dragons Love Tacos, Dr Seuss, Dear Zoo, The Hungry Caterpillar, Babar etc) that Luka can read Chinese audio along with our English hard-copy versions. This was a fun discovery for the kids.

Default language: in the App, you can choose to set Luka to interact with verbal commands in either Chinese or English. The default is Chinese, and we’ve left it that way, since that was our whole reason for purchasing it.

Reading log: from the parent’s phone, the app keeps track of number of books, book covers, and time spent with Luka Reading Robot, which can be an interesting way to review how the kids spent their time
It does a lot more than just books to immerse a child in Mandarin audio – we use it for asking random trivia questions, streaming Chinese podcasts, listening to lullabies, karaoke, playing board and card games, and even as a night light. As mentioned above, I’ve written another post on Luka’s non-reading functions!

Luka Reading Robot app book list — Screenshot of the phone app to track reading

Potential drawbacks of Luka Reading Robot

Compatible Books: You do physically need books for your child to read them with Luka Reading Robot….. if space is a limitation, this is worth keeping in mind. We tend to borrow NLB library books to overcome this issue. Luka won’t read all books, but it’s easy to check this before you buy or borrow (the app has an ISBN scanner from the phone, which you can shoot at any book to check). I’ve noticed the titles which are unique to Singapore independent publishing houses tend to not be accessible, whereas titles published from mainland China and Taiwan, and by US published houses like Scholastic. Ladybird and HarperCollins appear to be largely included. Also remember that your existing English books might be compatible, even for Chinese audio.
Confusing books: For book series with very similar looking covers or visuals inside (eg Meg & Mog and Meg’s Eggs) sometimes Luka confuses which book it’s reading. The solution it to turn ot off and start again. Also, if there are alternate versions of a book (eg Are You My Mother?, or The Giving Tree or Todd Parr’s World), Luka’s narration might be ever so slightly different by page, depending on which edition you have.
Other languages: We’ve bought Luka Reading Robot for the sole purpose of listening to stories in Chinese, and only Chinese. The robot also retails in other countries (eg Germany), and has had audio tailored for different regions. The app and how it’s used differs by region too, and from what I’ve read on Amazon, the non-Chinese versions seems a lot more buggy and has less content, which is what I would expect from a product which originates from mainland China.

Questions which I promised to answer:

Is Luka Reading Robot a useful tool to increase Chinese exposure for kids and independent reading?

Luka gives children exposure to both reading Chinese books (I’d say more for the audio, than the characters) and also has other inane babble in Chinese, including responses to voice commands.

Whilst Luka does read word-for-word of the books it recognises, and a child could theoretically follow along reading themselves, mine are yet to do this. For us, Luka has been more about building a love for the literature, than character literacy. Perhaps if we got simpler books it would help, but then again, that’s why we have the Le Le Reading Pen and graded reader set, which are a systematic way to build character knowledge and repetition.

As a resource for a non-Chinese speaking parent, or for a busy Chinese speaking parent, I think this is a good addition to the bookshelf to enable wider reading. If your intention is to help a child learn to read or write, I don’t think Luka is anywhere near sufficient.

How is the audio recording quality?

It’s clear and engaging, and uses many different voices for the reading. I guess that’s how they’ve been able to create audio for over 50,000 books in the space of a few short years. Some of the books have different sound effects and background music, and some are simply the words, but all are high quality professional narrations. I like the fact that the voices are varied, both male and female, as it helps tune the ear to different speaking patterns and speeds. Whilst I cannot vouch for any “accent” issues, I understand all the speakers are mainland Chinese.

I know from our experience that Luka’s English reading is a little patchy – we didn’t buy her for this, and I’ve disabled this from my phone so she won’t break out into reading any English stories. The only exception is for some stories which are bilingual with both written Chinese and English (eg Harry and the Dirty Dog) she reads both languages in sequence. It’s not bad spoken English on the whole, but particular words (especially names, which aren’t in a dictionary or foreign terms) she has very poor attempts at!

What ages is it most suitable for? Is it easy for a 3 year old to operate the robot?

My 2 year old can use it, and my 8 year old still enjoys it to read more complex books, which would otherwise be well beyond her. It’s literally as simple as just picking a book from the bookshelf, pressing her wing, and then it starts to read. I think as long as the book itself it age-appropriate, and that the child cannot read the book independently by themselves, then Luka would be appropriate.

I found that my 2.5 year old can use it independently – but she’s quite a book worm, and she’ll happily sit and flip her way through any book without an adult needing to prompt or remind her.

Luka AI Reading Companion — Peppa Pig and The Magic School Bus are two extremes of what Luka can read

Can adults set up an use Luka easily without knowing Chinese?

The app itself can be in English or Chinese. If your phone default language is English, the app will appear in English. It’s easy enough to find your way around – you’ll certainly be able to set it up and get your account working and reading books. Beyond that, there’s a bit of guess work around what all the other functions and sections do, as it seems to do a lot more than just reading and audio. A few google searches will reveal YouTube videos from other users with tips and tricks.

How’s Luka’s battery life?

Battery life is several hours. I think it depends how many books back-to-back you give, and also the amount of “new” downloading or “push” audio instructions it receives. It’s certainly long enough to use for a few days in a row, without recharging. The battery-life icon is a cute duck floating in water, and when the water is getting low, you can be sure the child will remind you to recharge it!

How is this bot different from an audio book or CD audio books?

It’s different because the child physically has the book and can turn to specific pages and have them read, in any order. The child can access all this by themselves, without asking an adult to start/stop/repeat the audio. It’s also portable, so you could take Luka on a car journey, or to the library (if you turned her down on very quiet mode!).

Luka does also have a large collection of pre-loaded audio-only books, so you can use her as an audio book speaker if kids like to listen along to such stories (which mine do some nights in a darkened room, before they drift off to sleep). We used to use a CD player for this (and also for playing Chinese kids music), but Luka has essentially replaced the need for this, and CDs don’t get lost, covers broken, etc.

Are there many compatible books to use with Luka? In your experience, can Luka read local Chinese books published in Singapore?

It reads 50,000+ books, but locally produced books from Singapore and Malaysia (like from Popular Bookstore) are less readable. Most of the library books we have borrowed can be read, likewise all the classical kids literature is there. We’ve had most success with books published by Scholastic, HarperCollins, Ladybird or else publishers in China and Taiwan. If you bought books on Taobao from China, they would probably be available on Luka, however it’s best to check beforehand.

Having said that you can always send the developers an email to update their booklist and see what happens (but I suspect given it’s not yet a widely used product in Singapore, it’s unlikely to be a high priority on the manufacturer’s wishlist). Other option would be to get a Chinese-speaking adult (teacher, friend, neighbour, grandparents) to quickly read the book and upload it yourself onto your own Luka. It takes about 5 minutes.

Where to buy Luka Robot in Singapore?

[Updated 10 July 2020]:

A team of passionate mothers are now 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 actually now the official distributor of Luka in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand too. The also can ship globally for online orders, if international shipping is paid. 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 offers 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, but you do, by way of a $20 discounted price. Purchase through their main website and enter my promo code as “Lahlah20off”.

How does Luka compare to Le Le?

They are completely different. I have reviewed Lele earlier at this page. Le Le is a carefully researched and crafted curriculum – which happens to have an audio pen – that assist a child to read characters. Each set is made with a limited number of characters, which repeat throughout the books and series. Le Le is most similar to Sage Books, in that it’s a curriculum. For Le Le, it’s the books which are the main value-add, and this is why it took 3+ years to write. The pen is a great “extra” that support a child to read the book when a parent cannot do that. I know of families who go through all 300 Le Le books and never use the reading pen at all.

Luka is essentially a smart audio book, which pairs with physical books. So for Luka, the main unique selling point is the technology where the robot can scan and read the physical books, with a massive collection of audio recordings. It can read 50,000+ books, which opens up a world of Chinese audio and reading to a non-reader (and for a parent who cannot read the language to their children). But, I don’t think it will in any way teach a child to read. It will support their exposure to spoken Chinese, and introduce new vocabulary, but it needs to be supported with some another structured learning system or curriculum (which could just be school). I doubt anyone has ever mastered English simply by listening to audio books, and same goes for Chinese!

How does Luka compare to Luka Hero?

Se my detailed post with head-to-head comparison of Luka Hero and Luka here.

In summary, both are excellent. 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.

How does Luka 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.

Comparison of Chinese reading pens — Comparison of different Chinese reading pens and robots

My previous posts on the topic include:

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

Well it’s probably cheaper (at least in Singapore). For example, Luka Hero set price is selling from the authorised retailers at 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! (and no affiliation here – it’s a benefit for you!).

De ZiRemi bookstore is selling Luka compatible books in United Kingdom. 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 the four sister team behind 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 / EZ Buy is where we bought our first one from.

JoJo Learning also sells Luka in the USA.

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. All comment welcomed!

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 love a lot, we we did overpay 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: Tatsuya Miyanishi’s Tyrannosaurus Series

Series Title: Tatsuya Miyanishi’s Tyrannosaurus Series 恐龙
Author: Tatsuya Miyanishi 宫西达也
Country of original publication: Japan
Language: Simplified Chinese
~ Pages per book: 40
~ Lines per page: 0-7
~Pinyin: No
~ Audio available: Luka compatible
Available in Singapore NLB libraries: yes

What is this series?

Tatsuya Miyanishi’s Tyrannosaurus Series was originally published in Japanese, by acclaimed author and illustrator Tatsuya Miyanishi. It’s sold over 10 million copies, and several year ago in the Chinese version was among the top 20 best selling children’s books in mainland China.

These books aren’t your typical dinosaur books for boys. Yes, they have bold illustrations and dramatic plot lines, but behind this are sentimental stories which touch on the ability to love, forgive, share friendship, and be one’s true self. These attributes are exactly what I feel a child needs to be hearing. This group of dinosaur buddies can starve, misunderstand each other, lose their babies, and, in some cases, pass away.

Tatsuya Miyanishi's Tyrannosaurus Series - inside picture

The stories don’t always have happy endings, but they are all great stories, and share the message that love is stronger than violence, and that we must do the right thing even in difficult circumstances. Often the books have an open-ended or ambiguous ending, which could be frustrating for a younger child, but great for a conversation and speculation on what would have happened, or how the dinosaur tribe might have been impacted by their adventures.

I especially like the fact that the “not so happily ever after” endings show us that in our own lives, things won’t always work out as we had hoped they would, but we can always learn from it. These books give lots of room for discussion on feelings and values, and how the endings may have ended up. In all, they are really moving stories. My children enjoy to re-enact the stories with their own toys and make out different (usually just as tragic) endings.

An interesting thing to note is that the original Japanese series has 7 books, and so does the Chinese set. However, the English translations only have 6….. so you’re getting a bonus by reading the Chinese set, which is the book entitled “I am Dad’s Favourite” 最爱的, 是我.

Titles in the Tatsuya Miyanishi Tyrannosaurus Series series:

Tatsuya Miyanishi's Tyrannosaurus Series all books

#1 你看起来好像很好吃 You Look Yummy – about the importance of family and the love between father and son, and teaches that strong bonds can grow even without a biological connection (imagine a T-Rex finding a baby of a different species and the typical case of mistaken identity unfolding).

#2 你真好You Are My Best Friend – featuring a dinosaur who transforms from a selfish tyrant of a creature to a caring one, after discovering real friendship. You’ll journey with Tyrannosaurus as he says “thank you” for the first time (which, from a Japanese cultural perspective, is a very big/hard word for many to come to terms with).

#3 遇到你, 真好 (translated from Chinese as “Good to Meet You” but the English book is actually published under the title “I Want That Love”) – strong and violent Tyrannosaurus discovers the even stronger power of love: his tail is bitten off, and some young triceratops nurse him back to health. He then protects them and sacrifices himself in a later battle.

#4 永远永远爱你I Will Love You Forever – another heart-warming story about adoption and the never-ending love between mother and son, even when birth parents come into the picture.

#5 霸王龙 I Am A Tyrannosaurus: a a mother teaches her Pterosaur son to be kind and to always help others in need. The little dinosaur remembers his mother’s lesson when he decides to care for an injured Tyrannosaurus.

#6 我爱你 I Really Love You: A weak Tyrannosaurus meets three friendly reptiles who save his life, even though they do not speak the same language. They become good friends despite this barrier, and it teaches that communication is about more than just words, and it a matter of the heart.

#7 最爱的, 是我 I Am Dad’s Favourite – this book has never been translated into English. It balances nicely with book #4. This time Tyrannosaurus discovers some eggs, but before he can eat them, a few babies hatch. He treats them like they’re his own babies, and shows the extent of fatherly love.

Kids will love the opportunity to re-enact the stories with their own toys.

Who is Tatsuya Miyanishi’s Tyrannosaurus Series series for?

This series will be enjoyed by adults and children alike – it’s a great one to read together, and do be ready for the emotional questions which may come back at you! Given the complexity of the storylines, a child is probably best older than 5 years of age – any younger, they certainly won’t get the story, and they may become upset by the bits which they do understand. If you want your child to read it by themselves, they’ll need to know roughly 1300 basic characters – so a Le Le Book graduate could achieve this. In Singapore, I’d think a P3 child would be able to read it independently, and a P2 could with some help.

Tatsuya Miyanishi's Tyrannosaurus Series Chinese book review

Where to buy in Singapore?

You can buy in Singapore from great children’s Chinese bookstores, including My Story Treasury . I’m excited to share that My Story Treasury has kindly extended a discount code to all readers of my blog. Use “lahlahbanana10” on check-out to receive 10% off any title that your purchase through their store.

If outside of Singapore, try Taobao or EZ Buy, with a search based on the story titles indicated above.

Other tips

Luka compatible: The books is compatible with Luka Reading Robot, for an audio read-out by page. According to Luka developers, this series is among the top 100 most frequently read stories on Luka.

New dinosaur vocabulary: For a dinosaur-loving child, this is a good opportunity to learn the real dinosaur names in Chinese, as it does use real species, and obscure ones at that!

Parental guidance: Keep in mind that some of the cute dinosaurs do die in several of the books, and it could be upsetting for a particularly sensitive child, or a for a child who isn’t able to get their questions answered by a parent. I would recommend for non-Chinese reading parents to read the English versions first, so you can truly discuss this book with your child and enjoy it together.

What else is there to know?

Actually I’d really love to know what your family’s favourite books are! Drop me a line as I welcome all suggestions.

If you want to read more on creating your own home Chinese library and great books to read with Luka, some earlier posts to look at would be:

Sagebooks 500: Chinese Levelled Reader Review

Sage Books has been our saviour in home teaching my preschoolers (2 and 4 year old) how to read Chinese characters. Sagebooks Basic 500 is the name for a highly prized – and expensive – set of Chinese books to teach young children how to read, and this review tells us why it’s been great for us.

This review covers:

Overview of Sage Book series
Pros of Sage 500
Cons of Sage 500
Tips on how to make Sage successful

Much like its namesake herb, I think the Sage Formula books are either you love them or hate them. In the same way, the context in which they are used is important – you wouldn’t eat sage after dessert, and you probably wouldn’t read Sagebooks after getting a taste of other more exciting reading literature.

So here’s my review of how we finally made a success of Sage Basic 500 on our third attempt to introduce it into our family. Third time lucky!

What is the Sage 500 Chinese book series?

Sagebooks is a Hong Kong publisher of a well known set of Chinese books designed to help children learn to read. They used to retail through Popular Bookshop in Singapore, which I think is how they became really really popular in this country!

The Sage Basic Formula 500 system has 25 books – 5 levels, with 5 books at each level. The series focuses on the first 500 common characters which children need in order to read children’s books (as opposed to the “easiest” Chinese words to learn). The aim is that after the system is finished, a child can read enough characters that they can start independently reading books.

The books introduce one character in each chapter, and build on each lesson, with repetition of previously learned characters. Being authored by a Montessori teacher I think aids this approach – a hallmark of the Montessori method is the three-period lesson on how you introduce any new concept. In all, it’s been systematically put together, and aims to build a child’s confidence through small successes and accomplishments.

When we tried Sagebooks 500 first and why it didn’t work

I tried Sagebooks 500 first when my eldest was three years old, and she was just beginning to understand English letters. I’d read multiple raving reviews about the Sage system, from Singapore’s Kiasu Parents forum and well known international bloggers (like Mandarin Mama and Guavarama), where parents sprout examples of how their 2 and 3 year olds could read 500 characters, thanks to using Sagebooks 500 for 15 minutes a day. Conversely, I’d seen other reviews that the books were boring; but I knew my daughter had a high threshold for boredom and that aspect wouldn’t be a problem.

So, I dipped my toes in. We bought Book 1 of Set 1 from Popular Bookstore in Singapore (note – they have stopped selling this set now). Before doing so, I browsed the other Chinese learn-to-read books on the shelf, and decided that rightly so, Sage Basic Formula did appear most appropriate for our family, since it had an English translation and pinyin too. I’d learned pinyin and tones previously in a beginner’s Mandarin classes at the Community Club, but that was about the limit of my Chinese.

I brought the book home, and immediately felt stupid. Was I kidding myself to start reading a book in Chinese to my daughter, when I couldn’t speak the language? Yes, I was.

It reminded me of the time I went to Nepal for an engineering project putting in a sanitation system at a school – I came across a whole village of Nepalese children who curiously told me they would help to “paint butterfly” on the walls of the new facility. After they painted it, with no signs of butterflies, I learnt it was something a German volunteer English teacher had taught the class for the word “beautiful”. They kids didn’t even know what a real butterfly was, so the irony was lost!

Sagebooks 500 Level 1 — Examples from Set 1, Book 1, including our “reading strip” to cover the pinyin

Second time around with Sagebooks 500

Fast forward three years, and my first daughter was about to graduate from K2, with a swathe of Chinese characters under her belt already. I still loved the concept of Sage, and saw it as something mythical which mummy bloggers often alluded to in how their child grasped the foundations of the language so fast and fluently. I wanted my daughter to love it too.

In essence, I really just needed my daughter to practice reading something for fluency. I knew we had the Sage book hiding in the cupboard. I tried it, and she rolled her eyes and complained. By that stage, Book 1 was too simple.

I simplistically then thought we’d just buy a book from Set 4, and pick up from there. But, when I revealed the new book and she recognised the cover, her eye-rolling started again and she read it the book in a monotonous tone before admitting that “mum, this isn’t fun”. I had to agree with her that the storyline wasn’t at all compelling – heck it’s reading practice not pleasure. But even compared to the other simple English readers we have, it was pretty dry. I didn’t want her to hate the experience of reading in Chinese, so I said we’d use other practice books instead (and thankfully we found Le Le graded readers – see my review of Lele Chinese here – which were much more interesting concept for a 6 year old, and she was reading on her own in no time!).

Why Sagebooks worked the third time around

My middle child, I think, started Sage Basic 500 at the perfect time for her. She was 4 and had been in a Chinese daycare for two years. She can understand spoken Chinese to the same level as her spoken English, can recognise roughly 40 characters, but hadn’t done much reading. She had equally limited reading ability in English, despite knowing and writing her alphabet well. Some children might be at this stage at 2.5 or 3.

When we started the Sage Basic 500 series, she just LOVED the fact that she could pick up Book 1 and read more than half of it independently by herself. Yes, she could finally read whole sentences by herself. She still hasn’t achieved this in English (yet!).

If you want to read in more detail about how this series taught my toddlers how to read Chinese well before they could read English, please see here.

I think this series has worked well this time around for a few reasons:

My daughter is young enough to feel a sense of accomplishment when she can read a bit by herself – my middle daughter couldn’t read fluently in English when we started, so it was a thrill to be able to read something (as opposed to the experience with I re-attempted Sage with my older child who was bored with the repetition and fairly flat storyline as her Chinese developmental level was behind where her English reading level was)

We do have a fluent Chinese speaker in the house now (being my elder daughter) – If we don’t know the pronunciation of a new character, my elder daughter can assist, which helps her get involved in the process too. The issue we had introducing the series when my elder daughter was younger, was that I also couldn’t pronounce the characters! Clearly, this would have been an issue initially if there was a mandarin speaking parent in the house.

As an added bonus, now that we’re using it successfully (5 years after we originally dipped our toes in the water), I’m actually learning from it too this time. I know enough pre-school Chinese from previous homework and tingxie, that I’m also starting to recognise and comprehend how the characters string together.

It’s really helpful for me, because the books have the pinyin above the characters, and the English below in small text. My daughter actually asked “Mama, I know it’s English at the bottom but what is the language at the top?”. LOL I’m glad she doesn’t yet know how to read the pinyin, although I do cover it up with our reading strip, so that if when she does “crack the code” it won’t be her crutch.

Will we get through to the end of Series 5, Book 5 (the 25^th book…)? Jury’s still out, but I’m hopeful we’re on the right track this time. In the meantime, it’s a much welcomed addition to the third row of our book shelf.

Pros of Sagebooks 500 Chinese

Simple pictures which assist in decoding the sentence – the pictures in Sage on initial glance were too cartoony for me, but they do relate closely to the sentence, which creates good contextual prompts for new words, and assists the child to recall what the text is likely to be about. (As an aside, the picture style remind me of the 米小圈上学记 Mi Xiao Quan’s School Diary books, which I also thought I wouldn’t like at first glance, but my oldest daughter is addicted to them).
It introduces common words in literature, not easy words – for example, in other books (and indeed the HSK syllabus) the numbers 1-10 are often introduced first, along with days of the week, and weather. Well, these aren’t actually very useful in reading a typical picture book. In Sagebooks 500, they introduce high frequency words first words like mountain (山), high (高) big, small, up and down, which are likely to be seen more in literature. And, with these collection of characters, you can quickly put a phrase together.
Intuitively designed for a young mind – it introduces a new character, shows how to draw it, and then repeats it in different sentences. My toddler likes to trace the characters and recognise them in the text; my five year old thinks she is the ants pants because she can read full sentences!
Availability of other supporting materials – Sagebooks publish a large number of additional reading books, flashcards, comics, games, writing sheets etc with matching characters to the books being studied, so there is a whole ready-made syllabus out there if it’s needed. You can just pay-plug-and-play. Also, may bloggers have developed their own downloadable free resources, given the popularity of the books, and the cost of the proprietary materials. GuavaRama has some wonderful free printables of all the characters in each series, including unique flash card which she sells on Etsy.

Cons of Sage 500 Chinese

Cost and accessibility – in Singapore, Sagebooks used to retail through Popular Bookstore, which is where we bought our first individual book. Now, it seems the first two series are not stocked there, and availability of the other ones is patchy at best, as they tend to sell them as individual books, rather than as sets of 5. Our series was picked up in Malaysia during a road trip, but I’ve heard it’s hard to find there too. I think the main option now is either to buy it secondhand, or ordering new from HK (which has quite a high shipping fee attached. Really, a set of 25 soft cover books shouldn’t cost someone SG$500k!) For this reason, I think the 4,5 Quick Read series and Odonata are of more accessible cost-wise for many in Singapore, and are very similar assuming a parent in the house can read Chinese.

Pinyin and English is included – this is a pro and a con. It’s good for me to be able to check my daughter’s reading, but in general I’d rather she focus only on the characters. Also, the English is not a word-for-word literal translation of each sentence. When new characters are introduced, there is no translation. So there’s been a few instances where we’ve needed to call on my older daughter to be the dictionary. What I do really appreciate is that the Chinese characters are in a large font, whilst the Pinyin and English are relatively small.

Potentially boring for an older child – there is a lack of any developing storyline or plot in Sagebooks 500, so the books are unable to keep the attention of my eldest, especially after reading many more interesting books. So I think the aim would be to get through the set as quickly as possible, before a child entered primary school. You’ll see from my picture below that Book 1 looks almost identical to Book 25! Again, this is where I think Odonata or Le Le would be a better choice if a child is older.
The text does have some errors: firstly, the English is poorly translated, so it’s best to ignore that. Secondly, some of the Chinese characters where it shows how to draw them are numbered incorrectly, or have odd strokes. I don’t understand enough to Chinese to know if any of the main Chinese book text is also incorrect, but my guess is it wasn’t edited/reviewed too closely.

Examples from Sagebooks 500 Set 5 (the final set)

Examples from Sagebooks 500 Set 5 (the final set)

Making Sagebooks 500 successful

Make it Sage practice a habit: Consistency in approach is so important. Sometimes life gets in the way and we cannot read our books for a couple of days, but it shows when we pick it up again. We’ve forgotten where we were, and what characters had just been learnt.

I look at the Sagebooks 500 system in the same way as a beginner learning the piano – a few scales and exercises need to be done each day or every second day is needed; unless it’s a habit and done consistency, we’re wasting our time doing it at all. It’s certainly not a “fun” reading experience, in the same way that routine piano exercises aren’t a pleasure either…. but if you slack off with the practice, that’s really the end. So I make sure we limit Sagebooks to no more than 15 minutes (or less if the attention isn’t there), and we finish off with more interesting/fun literature, for the pleasure of reading.

This doesn’t replace reading for pleasure: These books should not replace regular picture book reading! It would be a shame if they robbed time away from daily reading to go through this series. Try to make it in addition.

Make a DIY reading strip to cover the English and Pinyin in Sagebooks 500: Reading strips were first developed by reading specialists for children with attention disorders like ADHD, dyslexia, autism, where reading multiple lines of text can be confusing. It was a good hack for Sage too! I made a simple DIY reading strip using a plastic sheet cover and some washi tape, with inspiration from Mama Baby Mandarin. I tried to pick the most plain coloured tape we have – white would have been ideal, but we ended up with mauve. We use it as a bookmark too, to show where we are up to.

Our Sage 500 books, with the DIY reading strip. You can tell our books our well loved and read, right?

Sage Books 500 Chinese — Our Sage 500 books, with the DIY reading strip. You can tell our books our well loved and read, right?

Which Chinese Levelled Reader is best for our family?

It depends on family situation, child’s age, parent’s reading ability, and interests….. and of course, budget. I don’t think you need to have everything. Wider reading is good, but it doesn’t mean spending the universe to get it. We’ve been lucky to find many series secondhand in Singapore, and have been able to try out quite a few.

Below is a overly simplified schematic of which readers you might want to be considering, and I’ve got a more detailed comparison post with our favourite 5 graded reader series.

Comparison of levelled readers in Chinese

The other readers we have used and would recommend considering (depending on circumstances!) are listed below with links to more detail:

红蜻蜓学前阅读计划 Odonata Chinese Levelled Reading Series (up to 1200 characters)
樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese (up to 1300 characters)
迪士尼我会自己读第 Disney I can Read graded readers (up to 2000 characters)
洪恩识字 iHuman Shizi Readers (up to 1300 characters)
Little Sheep goes up the mountain (up to 1300 characters)

Book review: 米小圈上学记 Mi Xiao Quan’s School Diary

Key information about the Mi Xiao Quan series

Author: 北猫
Country of original publication: China
Language: Simplified Chinese
~ Pages per book: 133
~ Lines per page: 10 – 11
~ Books in set: 4 levels with 4 books in each set
~ Pinyin: yes, above characters
~ Audio available: Luka
~Available in Singapore NLB libraries: yes

Mi Xiao Quan’s School Dairy is a bit like the Chinese equivalent to Captain Underpants, Dogman, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. These are the types of books that I half-wish my 7 year-old had never discovered in the school library. I say half-wish, because whilst I’m not a fan of these English comic series, the upside has been finding a similar equivalent in Chinese which has caused her to become addicted to Chinese reading. Since my daughter’s discovery of Mi Xiao Quan 米小圈 , it has changed my view of mass market kids’ literature, which is peppered with jokes (often related to backsides) and comic strips. I finally do see why it helps a reluctant reader to get engrossed in reading.

Synopsis

Mi Xiao Quan is a playful primary school student who goes on many adventures with his pals. The most well known titles in this series are米小圈上学记 Mi Xiao Quan’s School Diary set, which is divided in Grade 1 through to Grade 4, with four books for each year. It chronicles the schoolboy’s journey, in first person diary-style conversational dialogue, punctuated by oversized doses of humour. The bold, colourful line drawings closely resemble Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

In the first book, Mi Xiao Quan enters P1, from kindergarten and realises the schooling environment is very different. There’s homework, less play, a tiny table which he has to sit at all day, and too many English spelling words which give him a headache. His diary takes you through his daily life and troubles, with hilarious observations. Sound familiar?

Why a child might like 米小圈上学记

It’s silly and laugh-out-loud funny for a child
It’s simple language (and the first few books do have pinyin)
It’s similar to other popular books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Captain Underpants

The book definitely has more text than Captain Underpants and Dogman (which can only be a good thing!), but the approach to humour is similar. Given research has shown the humour can boost retention in learning, I’m hopeful that all the snickering my kids have when they read this will be repaid in full with the boost to their fluency. Sometimes it’s hard to contain their laughter, and even my 2 year-old joins in literally rolling on the floor with giggles. I’m quite sure she doesn’t understand, but the laughter is infectious.

Why a parent might like 米小圈上学记

It gets a child actually reading, and wanting to read more
There are nearly 20 books now in the series, so if it’s a winner, there’s plenty to enjoy!
There are higher level books about idioms
It’s compatible with Luka Reading Robot

The books give a cultural glimpse into what school-life could be like in China. If your child thought going to school in kiasu Singapore was tough enough, they’ll get a reset perspective when they see how common corporal punishment is, and the intense academic competition between peers. Perhaps Singapore is not that bad after all!

A nice addition for parents is that there is a companion set of Mi Xiao Quan Brain Teasers and Chinese idioms – they’re probably better suited to upper primary children. There’s also dramatized version of Mi Xiao Quan’s school day Chronicles (available on YouTube), but shhhh we’re not telling the kids about this one. We’ll focus on the reading!

Inside the books

Mi Xiao Quan inside level 1 — The first 4 books in Mi Xiao Quan has Hanyu Pinyin. Text is well spaced and good for a child starting to move beyond picture books.

The Grade 1 and 2 books have characters and pinyin. But the upper levels do not have pinyin. For our family, initially the books largely need to be read with the assistance of Luke Reading Robot – which covers books in the first set only. But as my daughter’s character compression is growing (about 1000+ characters now), she’s becoming more independent.

Being one of the most popular children’s books in mainland China, these books are fairly easy to come buy, and won’t break the bank. In Singapore, the books can be purchased from many places. One online store I’d recommend is My Story Treasury . I’m excited to share that My Story Treasury has kindly extended a discount code to all readers of my blog. Use “lahlahbanana10” on check-out to receive 10% off any title that your purchase through their store.

For an earlier post I wrote on Luka Reading robot, and how this can narrate Chinese books, see my blog here. For a post on another Chinese series which is similar to The Young Scientists, see what I wrote here.

Mi Xiao Quan and Luka Reading Robot — Reading with Luka Reading Companion

Other books similar to Mi Xiao Quan 米小圈上学记?

I would class Mi Xiao Quan series as “Chinese Bridging books” …. a term coined for books which span the space between learning to read, and reading to learn (or literature for literacy, versus literature for leisure). These types of in-between books aren’t exactly easy to find on the shelves of the local library (especially the simplest books), unfortunately, as the appeal is a very niche one – since for children from fluent Chinese families, most of these books would be too simple. There are some book sets which explicitly brand themselves as ‘bridging’, and there are others which don’t, but would fit the category also.

The difficulty for us has been finding interesting “bridging” literature for an older child, especially when their English reading stage could be so far ahead of their Chinese level. The ‘beginner’ books are just boring, with limited storyline, and can make reading more of a chore than anything else.

On my blog, I’ve attempted create reviews of our Chinese bridge books, from easiest to hardest, in terms of breath of characters and length of the book. The image below shows how these books fit together.

Comparison of Chinese bridge books by length and complexity

Please visit my Summary of Chinese Bridge Books to find more detail on the books shown in the diagram. Hopefully there’s something in that list with suits your family. At a guess, if the humour of Mi Xiao Quan appeals to your children, they probably also would like Butt Detective, Nate the Great, and Les P’tites Poules.

Enjoy the reading journey, and please share with me your own book recommendations!

Book Review: 100 Thousand Whys 十万个为什么

Author: Jian Le Bao (JLB)
Country of original publication: Singapore
Language: Simplified Chinese
~ Pages per book: 35
~ Lines per page: 20 – 30
~ Books in set: 5
~ Pinyin: no
~ Audio available: Penpal Whizz
Available in Singapore NLB: No

Our latest order of Penpal Whizz books arrived today, which included 十万个为什么 (动物卷).

My elder daughter is an avid reader of The Young Scientists series, which as the name would suggest is a kids science-based magazine popular in South East Asia. It’s a graded English series, with lots of comics, debunking myths around our planet and sharing fun facts. She read it for hours, and it’s always top on the list of what to borrow from the school library. The series 100 Thousand Whys 十万个为什么 is in all aspects is strikingly similar, but in Chinese.

Comparison of 100 Thousand Whys and The Young Scientists with

The slim soft-cover books are filled with interesting facts that a child can understand – like why do snakes shed their skin? What happens with a crab loses it pincer?

Formatwise, there’s a fun illustrated comic panel on one page (much like Young Scientists), and then a longer description on the opposite page. The books all fit into a nice cardboard sleeve, so the set can be kept together and put onto a bookshelf (unlike our Young Scientists which are sprawled all over a magazine rack).

The series suited more for upper primary, given the topics included. From a language perspective, much of the Chinese in too difficult for my daughter, certainly in terms or writing and perhaps in terms of listening comprehension too. But, I would say the same thing about some of the Young Scientist sets too. The difference being that Young Scientists has graded levels from P1 to 6, which 100 Thousand Whys does not.

Given the series is compatible with the Pen Pal Whizz, it means she can hear the characters’ voices, sound effects from the pictures, and also the narrative of the written Chinese text. I’m not sure how much ‘reading’ she is really doing, but she is able to learn fun facts about nature through listening to the pen and looking at the pictures. For a child with no Chinese literate parents, this was a good start for me to get her independently reading and appreciating more difficult materials in a Chinese language medium.

In Singapore, 十万个为什么 (动物卷) retails for S$29 for a set of 5 (yes, we paid for this price too!), and can be bought here: https://penpalwhizz.com/products/copy-of-10-million-why-animal-series

I’ve written a previous post on Penpal Whizz, and other reading pens which we like here.

What is Penpal Whizz? How does it compare to other Chinese reading pens?

Different reading pens and curriculums 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.

PenPal Whizz is a good choice if you’re in Singapore (it’s produced locally by JLB and is relatively cost competitive).

Comparison of different Chinese reading pens (including Luka, Penpal, Ciaohu, Le Le, Habbi Habbi)

Refer to my previous posts for more information about Chinese reading pens – these include:

I would love to hear from you, especially if you have experience with other Chinese reading pens. It’s only through meeting other wonderful parents virtually, that this shared language journey becomes a more valuable one. All comments welcomed!

Surviving P1 Chinese for the clueless parent

How should you prepare for P1 Chinese as a parent? Do I need to enrol my child in Berries or Wang Laoshi? To be honest, Primary 1 Chinese is not that hard, HOWEVER it can be quite a shock for children who have never learnt Chinese before, and for those who come form non-native speaking families. I’ve now gone through P1 Chinese twice with different kids, and realized that there are right and wrong ways to go about the learning.

The epiphany came to me when my eldest daughter was halfway through P1 ….. it camr about asI had found some of her past Chinese writing homework from her kindergarten and asked her to read it (after which, I was genuinely planning to toss it out as I hate clutter). But she couldn’t read it. We were both dumbfounded. It was then that I realised why Chinese at primary school was such a struggle, and I resolved to change this.

For more background on how as non-Chinese literate parents that we have now managed to have all three children reading and speaking fluently in Chinese, please refer to my related post here.

Why P1 Chinese became such a struggle

My daughter had been in a typical Singaporean daycare centre for her nursery and kindergarten school years – the full day kind, where there are plenty of laoshis, and the majority of the day is bilingual immersion. Sure, it’s a lot of routine tasks like showering, eating, playing, but a large part of this is conducted in Chinese.

Primary School came along, and she entered the local school system. Chinese is taught as a mother-tonguage subject, alongside all the other subjects like Maths, English, PE, Music, etc. It’s taught in short blocks, with large classes, by Singaporean teachers who also speak English. The focus suddenly moves from showering and play time, into stroke order, grammar, and sentence creation. All the inane daily chatter from the mainland Chinese laoshis of the daycare environment is gone. For many children, this wouldn’t be a problem as they come from homes where mandarin is routinely spoken (or at least heard from the older generations). For our banana household, this was a big issue.

The issue only crept up on us slowly – the first term or more of P1 was simple. But by mid-year, the toll had obviously come and the language regression was stark. I realised that my daughter hadn’t heard any Mandarin stories for months; the weekly tingxie had become a struggle; and now she couldn’t even remember her kindergarten work! To compound this, up until that point I had taken a limited interest in her Chinese schoolbooks beyond a cursory glance at the red pen marks added by the teachers (largely due to my inability to comprehend any of it).

Turning from surviving to thriving in primayr school Chinese

The key change 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, and sense checking if we were reading the map the right way.

Everyone is at a different place, with different needs. Here are a few things which helped us, as a non-Chinese speaking family, and hopefully some may prove useful to you too.

1. Be ready to invest time and energy

Taking Chinese at primary school level as a mother tongue is not the same as learning it in pre-school or as a second language. It quickly goes from being a fun and immersive approach, into an academic structure with weekly spelling tests, and focus on character writing; and with 30 – 40 in the class, the individual time for learning in school is limited. This really means you need to be their quarterback, and support your child’s learning outside of school. The more your invest now, hopefully the payback will come in the future.

2. Really understand the MOE P1 textbook structure

Have a really good read of the first three pages at the front of the textbook, which are designed for parents. I bet many of you have never stopped to read them before? These could possibly be the most important few pages that you should read (preferably at the start of the school year, but it’s never too late!). The pages break down the topics being taught in each chapter and the key learning points. This way, you’ll know broadly what should be going on in class each week.

P1 Chinese text book — Two pages at the front of the book which explain structure and topics

Then, ensure that you understand the vocabulary lists. I naively thought that the weekly spelling words were at the back of the book. WRONG. The “lists” at the back of the MOE textbooks are only characters, as opposed to words or real vocabulary! The characters are divided into “must recognise” and “must be able to write”. But, they’re still not words. This realisation came to me very late. Additionally, if you’re looking for the pinyin versions of these words in the back of the textbook, they’re contained within the chapters themselves. This is a much easier place to look and learn! In the book text itself, you’ll see: “我会认” which is what students are only required to recognise, readout, and write in hanyu pinyin. 我会写 requires everything in 我会认 but in addition, the child must know how to write the character.

Prepare for P1 Chinese tingxie — The character list at the back of the book….. not the best place to be revising from.

Character list in the chapter (example for Chapter 1), which includes the pinyin: **我会认**” which is to recognise and write in hanyu pinyin. **我会写** requires everything in **我会认** but also character writing.

But, back to my point on characters versus vocabulary. Actual Chinese words are made up of combinations of characters, and that is what we should have been focussing on. I’ve written this previously, but a classic example is ma (horse) and shang (up). A child could read each character, but not understand that “ma shang” means “immediately”. There’s a nice historical reason to this, but kids won’t get it unless they’re exposed to reading more than just the characters. Hence my initial focus of simply understanding the prescribed characters each week, meant that she didn’t know a tonne of actual words of vocabulary, and found it difficult to read passages, which was getting her behind.

So, the real vocabulary lists which you should be studying together are not the characters in the back of the textbook BUT the word lists contained within the textbook chapter themselves. These too also have pinyin, which makes it less of a mind game. In the in-chapter vocabulary lists, it highlights words to use for standard Chinese (they grey colour in the example below), and then the additional vocabulary for higher-performing students (pink below colour). Sometimes I wonder why my daughter didn’t tell me all of this, but then I realise she probably also had no idea.

Prepare for P1 Chinese textbook — Example of P1 Vocabulary List for Chapter 1, with #1 – 10 as basic words and #11 – 15 as the advanced words

Making more sense now? Thankfully, the Chinese textbooks in P2 and beyond follow this same structure. So, once you’ve learnt it, you’ll be all set until the next curriculum change!

3. Consider regular Chinese reading and activities for your child which follow the MOE syllabus

There are a few options here:

MOE Xue Le website – this accompanies the textbook, and has added videos and games on it. It’s a free tool, and very well put together. So make the most of it! It’s now only available through the SLS Student Portal unfortunately (perhaps to may people outside of Singapore were using it!).

Revision books – there are obviously plenty available, but choose one which covers the same topics / themes each week as the school, and isn’t too demanding. Two we particularly like are photographed below, which are from Educational Publishing House called “Chinese Weekly Revision” and “Chinese Mega Compositions”. They have each book for grades P1 to P6.

The “Chinese Weekly Revision” has nice bite-sized pieces to review the some topics as the MOE curriculum, with similar structure to their expected school word, as you’ll see from the photograph . The “Chinese Mega Compositions” has sample composition pieces which can be read as 3 minute short stories each day. Combined, these two books take us about an hour per week to complete, and we’re a little slow!

Revision book for Chinese — Example revision books for P2 ….. the same exists for P1

The “Chinese Mega Compositions” has 200 short example composition pieces, based on the pictures. It’s good for a weekly read – book is available with and without pinyin translation (example from P2 book)

The “Chinese Weekly Revision” book, follows similar pattern to MOE

Wider reading – Honestly I would suggest you look at bridging books to make the reading most pleasureable. However, if following MOE is your coal, there are two fun subscription magazines which can come fortnightly called “Zhi Shi Hua Bao” 知识画报, and “Hao Peng You” 好朋友 , which follow the MOE syllabus. Some schools actually supply these themselves to the students themselves. These can be fun for a child to read and do the word puzzles in, and reinforce what should have been learnt in the classroom. For children less familiar with the language, and unable to get help at home, there is a reading pen called eTutor Star which can be used with these publications to give a Chinese audio version (See my review of the eTutor pen here). We also read every night at least one fun bedtime story using our Luka Reading Companion, which is our key to enjoying more difficult Chinese literature.

Tingxie practice – realise that getting the characters right is a cornerstone to keeping up in class! Make sure the child has the tools to revise their weekly spelling lists. Perhaps this means using an app if no one in the family can assist (see my review on how we’re using Skritter to fill this gap), or perhaps this means asking the Chinese teacher to record the words in a voice file each week, so the child can play it and practice on their own.

Supporting online classes – If you realy need more support, you could consider a one-to-one online Chinese langage class. They’re considerably cheaper than enrichment centres and often you can do them in your own time from home. Some of them like LingoAce and GenieBook follow closely to the MOE syllabus, and others like Vitamin M or Dim Sum Warriors not only follow the MOE syllabus but do it through doodling and laughter.

4. Put more Mandarin Chinese into your lifestyles

Increase opportunities hearing Chinese spoken around the house – set Starhub TV channels to Mandarin as default language (most of the kids’ cartoons allow for this option); put the radio on in background on a random Chinese channel. Even Amazon Prime videos have some good Chinese language options (including many of the Julia Donaldson classics). Even if no one is actively paying attention to the sound, they will pick up correct pronunciation over time. Listening skills are actually said to be the most important skill in acquiring a new language.
Encourage your child to keep actively reading for leisure in Chinese and make it a daily habit – This could be borrowing from the school library or NLB, or buying a set of age-appropriate graded readers (see my review of Le Le Chinese series here, which we use). The National Library Board organises book readings in Chinese for kids at some of their libraries, and the values of extensive reading in Chinese are imeasurable.
Consider doing som non-academic classes in Chinese – make the learning fun, not a chore. Could you swimming coach speak in Chinese? or the piano teacher? Do your kids play online games together like Minecraft, and could you make a rule these when doing this they only can use Chinese? We have found so mnay great CCAs taught in Chinese, both online and in person.

Finally, if you’re reading this and your child is not yet in P1, then you still have a bit of time to really nail the basics of your child’s mandarin skills. I would highly recommend trying the Sage Basic 500 series which I reviewed here . Sagebooks is a set of 25 workbooks which step-by-step teaches your child to read 500 common Chinese characters. It’s great for a younger child, who hasn’t had a lot of exposure to wider reading yet. Flash cards and literacy apps at home could also be a fun way to build scaffolding so you are a fully P1-ready family.

After a few very small behavioural changes in our house, the attitude towards Chinese became much more positive, and the results thankfully set a firm foundation for continued success in future primary years. This post is to tell you not to fret about preparing for P1 Chinese, nor to spend thousands on tuition. Go into it mindfully, and know that the primary school Chinese journey cannot just be a passive one – you’ll need to think thoughtfully and be there to support your child, especially if you’re a non-native speaking parent.

The upside is that within 6 months my daughter could read and write over 1300 characters after the intervention, and she’s gone on to do Higher Chinese for upper primary. If you wan to find oure more on the intervention – see continuation of the story here.

What tips do you have?

What else is there to know?

Actually, I’d love to know what your family’s tips are for acing school! Join the conversation at the Ni Hao SG Primary School Chinese facebook group which I host with a few other Singaporean bloggers.

If you got to the end and found this helpful, maybe there are some other posts on my blog you might also enjoy. As a parent who doesn’t speak any Chinese, we’ve relied heavily on online tools, clever robots, and recommendations of others in our Chinese learning journey. Some of my earlier posts are:

Comparison of online Chinese language classes for children

This review is a comparison of our experience in taking online Chinese language classes for children, including with LingoAce, LingoBus, Vivaling, Geniebook and more.

As regular readers would be aware, I champion the “no formal tuition” approach outside of school hours, so we only started to look for formal online Chinese language classes when COVID hit Singapore in 2020, and schools closed and the children needed to be able to continue learning their Chinese from a textbook, without anyone in the house understanding the language. It was eye-opening for us to try out the different options and see how effective screen-based learning can be. We’re glad we did, because having over 3 consecutive months away from school was a long time to get no Chinese teaching or interaction.

For children who are learning or planning to learn Chinese, we’ve learnt that there are a variety of great online Chinese language classes for children available, which can be highly interactive and helpful in getting regular exposure to more Chinese, and typically much cheaper than in-person classes or tuition centres. An online class can also be more convenient (flexible timing 24/7, short classes, no transport etc.), and was more appealing to my child than I ever imagined.

What online Chinese language classes for children are available?

Essentially, the whole world is available to you, if your Chinese class is online! So find the best and the most cost effective way to learn Chinese.

My kids have been learning Chinese online for many years….. since way before COVID came into the picture. They have had already had regular one-on-one weekly chats (15 minutes) with a native speaker in mainland China. These lessons were set up to be primarily conversational, so the children can tune their hearing to listening over the computer, and also over the telephone.

When COVID set in, a whole bunch more class providers and competitors appears. So, I looked at trying out some a longer and more formal online Chinese classes for my children. Thankfully most of the online Chinese class providers offered free trials, and we were lucky enough to try out many different options. This post is what we discovered.

I would say different online Chinese classes suit different family needs, and also children’s learning styles. Below is a quick comparison table, with more details expanded below:

Comparison of online Chinese language classes for children — Comparison of online Chinese class platforms

One thing I’ve learnt about online Chinese platforms from mainland China is that you should NOT sign up without a referral link. It seems to be the way for many excellent online services from China, that they operate a quasi pyramid scheme….. so whilst it’s possible for you to sign up without using a referral link, you will probably receive bonus free classes etc if you join through someone else’s link. Sometimes these are quite considerable, for example depending on the promotion period, Lingo Ace and Lingo Bus may give you up to 8 free classes; VIP Peilian gives you 6 free classes, etc etc. Ideally, ask a friend who uses the service to give you their referral link, as it may give your friend a few free classes too. If you don’t know anyone with a link, I have some listed below too from various people we know who use these services.

LingoAce Online Class Review

LIngo Ace online Chinese classes for children — https://sg.lingoace.com/

Trial Class Experience: My daughter just loved her trial! The trial class had two other participants, and the entire 55 minutes was filled with games to write characters and put them into sentences. The online interface was stunning and visually appealing, with trophies and points being awarded interactively to the children throughout the lesson. Their curriculum follows the Singapore MOE Higher Chinese approach.

The course is different depending on whether you are in Singapore, China or overseas. The Lingo Ace Singapore course and teaching style is very much suited for children learning in local MOE schools with good Chinese – if you’re not in this system, I would recommend you opt for their ‘International’ course, which might be more suitable for non-Singaporean kids. The style is very much based on the MOE text-books, with lots of games. They also offer a course specifically for Mainland Chinese students following the HSK syllabus.

Class length and schedule: For the Singapore MOE group class option, it’s either 25 or 55 minutes in a group of up to 4. For us, 55 minutes was a long time to be on the screen (the time did fly by!), but after seeing the beaming smiles and hearing her beg to do it again, I was keen to sign up. We made a valiant effort to sign-up, but learnt that classes must be a minimum of twice a week AND that written homework was compulsory, which was all going to be too much for our timetable. I must confess, I did even offer to pay full price, and just to let her join only once a week, but the salesperson explained that as the syllabus is strictly followed, that she’d miss out on too much. I understand that for students outside of Singapore, they are more flexible around this rule. The class schedule is fixed in the same two slots per week, and the class has the same children each week.

For the 1-on-1 class options, there is a bit more flexibility on schedule.

Booking Process: Simple. Just contacted through website, and they followed up with SMS to schedule trial class timing. For actual classes, it can be done through their portal, with selection of preferred teacher. It asked me to select the teacher for the trial class which I feel it might not be necessary.

Software: It was web interface (driven by Classin Software). Simple to login and use. Fast speed, real time talking from teacher and other students, not laggy.

Customer Service: The rep was very keen to follow-up, and had quite a strong “sell” strategy to offer me packages and discounts which were only valid “for today only, sign up now”. I didn’t appreciate this hustling so much, but I few months later he did follow-up again and offered me some more class options. I do feel they really listened, and tried to accomodate my request to only schedule a class once a week, not twice, and find a level which best suited my children.

Final thoughts: This would be a good programme for those looking for something to support and reinforce their child’s learning in the classroom (especially in a Singapore classroom!). It’s essentially just a long online game reiterating the primary school syllabus, including hanyu pinyin, composition writing, oral and even practice exams, etc. But, according to parents who have signed up, also be ready for the additional homework!

Additionally, as the curriculum is quite strong and standalone, the HSK Mainland Chinese course or International stream could be helpful for families who don’t study Chinese in school, but want to keep up learning the language.

Here is a referral link to LingoAce free class trial.

[March 2021 Update: LingoAce has significantly revised and improved their offering, including opening a large physical premise in Singapore. We gave their new online classes a try, and here’s a much more detailed review on how we’ve found LingoAce, including a detailed comparison between their Singapore Bilingual course, and their Advanced course, which we’ve tried]

LingoBus Online Class Review

www.lingobus.com

Trial Class Experience: This was strikingly similar in most respects to Lingo Ace in its approach, with a great interface for the child, and an engaging teacher leading the session. It’s also a game-based, highly interactive learning experience. The company is based in mainland China, although communicating with them in English wasn’t a problem at all.

The value-add which Lingo Bus offers over Lingo Ace is the access to offline materials, which also includes potential for printable homework and some really wonderful online stories in their eBook library. I think this is a wonderful addition to supplement the learning. They also send an email after EVERY class with written feedback on how the child has done in the lesson. I value this.

Another difference was that not being based in Singapore, it doesn’t follow the local MOE primary school curriculum. I was specifically looking for assistance to support our homeschool learning. Moreover, from looking at their lesson materials and branding, I feel this course is really focussed on non-Chinese learning the language, in a fun format (eg lots of songs and simple visual illustrations, which perhaps are not always grammatically correct). It appears focussed on the spoken language, with less emphasis on cultural context and history of the language.

I realised after our first class, that I’d signed up in the “non-native” speakers category (called “Listening and Speaking”), which is why it was at a simpler level. After this, actually LingoBus staff reached out to offer three free trial classes in the “Heritage Chinese” stream (now called “Reading & Writing” stream). This was at a much better level for my daughter, however, it also meant that then all the automated emails I received from LingoBus as the parent were written in Chinese. I guess it’s hard to win!

Class length and schedule: Classes can be booked at any time 24/7 through their portal, and there are no set group of children in each class (so it’s just a random set, at the time you book) and different teachers can be chosen depending on your availability. Class length was a much more palatable 25 minutes, and it can be done once or twice a week (or potentially more, I would guess). I personally would prefer to have a fixed regular teacher.

Booking process: Their website is very clear and the communications were professional and helpful. It was simple to book our trial classes at times which suited us, and the same can be done for the real classes. We ended up needing two accounts for my daughter, one in the ‘Non-native’ stream and one in the ‘Heritage’ stream. The company sent quite a few emails prior to to classes to remind us to login, and download the app, and to do a trial placement test, etc.

Software: The classes run from an online classroom link from their web portal, but it requires to be configured/downloaded prior to the class. It worked well and provided good interactive experience. Their courseware is sophisticated and well designed; they clearly have some excellent online developers! Their website has a wealth of additional learning resources, like eBooks, flash cards, etc.

Customer service: Their website has some great videos to display how their lessons are structured, and I personally found their salespeople less ‘hustling’ than our Lingo Ace experience.

Final thoughts: My impression is the “non-native” stream is more suitable for new learners, especially children in a zero Mandarin environment. It’s a lot of fun and and not rigorous. The syllabus follows a theme-based approach (eg colours, fruits, animals, greetings, festivals, etc). It’s probably less suited to a true bilingual family. If you look at their Youtube channel, most of the students features are Western families, which I would guess it the target market here. Then, on the “Heritage” stream, it’s really for families where everyone speaks Chinese.

If you do sign up, try to get a referral code from someone else, and there will be plenty of extra classes thrown in (usually something like 5 free classes for every 10 classes you buy). Use this referral link for a free trial. Also, look out for their 11/11 or CNY class package sales, which are said to be at a good discount.

A great thing about Lingo Bus is you can stop and start whenever needed (in case you get unexpected lockdowns and upsets to your usual Chinese learning classes!). One of my daughters really loved this class enough to request to continue, and we’ve now done over 20 paid classes on LingoBus.

Speaking Duck Online Class Review

https://speakingducks.com/

Trial Class Experience: I cannot say much, as we couldn’t get past the software step unfortunately, and then there was no follow-up, so we couldn’t proceed with the trial class.

Class length and schedule: 30 minutes, once a week, which sounds just perfect. Whilst this is Singapore based, they follow the HSK (Chinese Proficiency Test) system, which is very solid.

Booking process: Signing up through the website was simply – just filled out the information, and an email confirmation as sent immediately. The website says for regular classes, it will be a fixed teacher.

Software: It was clunky. We couldn’t manage to download the software and the verification codes. We were using an old laptop, and perhaps it didn’t have all the right versions of software on it, but we were never able to get the video and sound working, so were unable to continue. There wasn’t any follow-up, so unfortunately we couldn’t proceed with this. However, as I understand it now, they use Zoom as their main platform, so it’s probably improved from our poor experience. Still, Zoom would be simple, but I cannot imagine it could be as interactive as some of the other highly impressive virtual classrooms with experienced from other providers, especially for larger groups of students.

Customer service: Urk, this is a weird one. I’m part of a few online bilingual parenting groups, and several have commented on the ‘interesting’ tactics used by this company. I cannot really comment, except that it was impersonal (all through online messages) and I didn’t feel fully genuine. Also, most of the communications were in Chinese (I guess my Chinese surname could be a factor for this mix up) despite it being a Singapore based company.

Final thoughts: If you can get past the customer service, it might be okay. However, seems a poorer cousin to the other services we tried, and prices are similar. I don’t know anyone who has signed up for this service, so no referral links to offer.

Mandarin Tree Online Class Review

https://www.mandarintree.nl/

Trial Class Experience: I hesitated including Mandarin Tree in this list, because it’s not a big online platform like everything else I’ve listed….. it’s totally different. There’s really no comparison, but it’s a special service and deserves to be better known. They’re a small, but passionately run creative based Chinese language school in The Netherlands, run by a Singaporean MOE teacher. The school offer in person classes (if you’re lucky enough to be living in beautiful Haarlem), but importantly for the rest of us they have remote learning. Remote learning has been a part of Mandarin Tree since its inception, and their curriculum, materials and pedagogical methods have been designed with remote learning in mind. They don’t have any free trials (they do provide paid trials), but we were confident to sign up and pay for a full term of classes, having followed their Instagram and FB pages for 1.5 years, and being impressed by their activities and learning methods. My daughter loved her first lesson, and each subsequent lesson.

Class length and schedule: Mandarin Tree works like a real school, with classes at set times, and terms, all shown clearly on their website. The have a preschool course, and 6 levels of Chinese lessons for primary school, taught in 11-week blocks. Classes are 30 to 50 minutes depending on child’s age, with a creative MOE inspired syllabus.

Booking process: Classes are at fixed times, and a Zoom link is sent out weekly with the details of what is required for class, including printouts, or songs to learn, etc. It’s very easy to sign up for a term of classes and connect directly with Karen Laoshi (founder of Mandarin Tree).

Software: The classes run using Zoom, with password protection for safety. It’s also helpful to have a printer, as the classes are highly interactive with a lot of flashcards and craft, which needs to be prepared before the weekly classes. The don’t have all the fancy bells and whistles of other online platforms, but that’s the charm of it.

Customer service: It’s amazing! I mean, you’re in contact with the teachers directly, and they’re highly approachable, so no complaints. The teachers know every student, and everyone is treated like family.

Final thoughts: Mandarin Tree has been excellent for my 3 year old. We have done a term of the parent-child accompanied playgroup classes, and it runs just like a regular in-person playgroup, with song times, circle time, craft time, and opportunity for parents to chat. The only difference is the classmates come from multi countries (Australia, Singapore, Germany, UK). The group classes for older children also look like a great option, and they’re designed and run by Karen Laoshi, who is an Singapore MOE teacher, so you’ll know it’s focussing on the right things.

At Mandarin Tree also draws inspiration from the theory of multiple intelligence, which is why the programmes are taught using methods that span the musical, visual, interpersonal, bodily-kinesthetic, naturalistic, logical, intrapersonal and verbal-linguistic modalities. Karen is a bundle of energy, and we look forward to seeing her smile each week.

You too can follow their Mandarin Tree account on IG or FB and see how much fun Karen Laoshi has with her classes. Also, she’s kindly offered a 10% discount code for my blog readers if they sign up using “LAHLAHBANANA”.

Vivaling Online Class Review

Vivaling online Chinese classes for children — https://vivaling.com/

Trial Class Experience: VivaLing has one-on-one classes via Zoom, and group classes for siblings. Given our previously good experience with weekly conversational classes on Viva Ling, I was keen to see what else they had to offer in terms of more structured group classes.

We were able to keep the same teacher as our regular one-on-one conversations, and increase the class length and frequency, and tap into the VivaLing syllabus. They have online flash cards (using Quizlet), and are able to effectively share videos, story books, and an online ‘white board’ for character drawing. There’s homework too, and the ability to re-watch the class at a later date, or share it with family or friends.

Class length and schedule: Ranges from 15 minutes to 60 minute options, as many times as preferred during the week. Siblings can also be grouped together. Timing is flexible, and the same teacher can be selected.

Booking Process: Simple, through their online portal. I have found the whole thing is very impersonal (booking, payment, etc), but we have a wonderful teacher and have now been using her for over a year (initially just with conversations, and then during lockdown with more formal classes).

Software: It’s done over Zoom – initially I was sceptical, as to whether their interface for making it engaging, and learning reading / writing could be done effectively via Zoom. They proved it was possible! The Zoom chat was fully password secured, and Zoom have also recently updated their privacy policies, so I was very comfortable that this method was as safe, if not safer, than the other online class portals. For one-to-one classes, I think Zoom is a good platform. My daughter can set it up independently, and be ready for her class without my involvement!

Customer service: Apart from one initial in-person chat at the start of our Vivaling experience, there has been very little interaction with them. The system is smooth – we book, we do the class, and we get sent a weekly email summary of the class, including learning goals, homework (if any), and a video replay of the class. Top up payment it done via Paypal. We haven’t had any problems that have needed to engage customer service, and they’ve never pushed classes on us or contacted us proactively.

Final thoughts: These classes aren’t cheap, but they’ve been most effective option for us. Being one-on-one, I’m also able to send the teacher in advance the school lessons and ensure she covers this adequately in the approach in terms of stories, flash cards, themes, etc. We’ve now done them for 2 years, and highly enjoy these classes.

It’s also worth noting that Viva Ling provides qualified tutors in many different language, not just Chinese, whereas the other providers listed above are specialists in Chinese language learning. For Chinese, Vivaling tends to follow the HSK (Chinese Proficiency Test) system for their curriculum.

Since we signed up for these classes and have now paid for them over the last two years, I have our family’s personal referral code for these classes, which I can share if you message me directly. Vivaling doesn’t originate from China, so alas, whilst they offer a free trial, they don’t have all the free classes and discounts which the mainland Chinese platforms tend to offer, and the overall price is somewhat higher (but it hasn’t deterred us! We honestly think VivaLing is well worth the price).

Koala Know Online Class Review

Koala Know online Chinese classes for children — Koala Know: https://www.koalaknow.com/

Trial Class Experience: This is a really interesting option for classes. I wish we’d discovered it earlier during the Circuit Breaker period. Koala Know follows a heuristic contextual teaching model, which is slightly different from all the other classes above which are more theme based. It’s specifically designed for Chinese families outside of China, to learn/retain fluency in speaking and literacy, and understand cultural context.

The unique Koala Know curriculum aims to intentionally “word seeds” which are radicals / characters / parts of characters, and do fun, thematic study of each of these.

The class was not as much “game play” as Lingo Bus or Lingo Ace, and had more of a serious teaching / learning element to it….. although our trial only had my children in it, and I’m told that for a real class there is a lot more interaction between participants and sharing of ideas.

Booking Process: Done through their online website (with options for Chinese or English language interface). Classes do need to be done at a regular time each week, to enable the same group of children to be involved. Timeslots are 24/7. It’s a fixed teacher, and fixed students in the class.

Software: The Koala Know online portal is also highly interactive (like Lingo Ace and Lingo Bus), but with lots of extra features including extra recordings on book reviews, and other themes of interest. I think this is a wonderful way for bilingual children to dig deeper into the language, and explore beyond what they probably have been taught within the traditional classroom. They also organise monthly themed classes, some of which are really good content.

Customer service: I think it depends where you are. In Singapore, there is a head office, so we were lucky to interact directly with the Koala Know rep here, who explained to us the syllabus and helped us to get started. If in Singapore, I’d recommend you book directly through their office here, rather than on the global website. That will ensure your queries get routed to the right place.

Final thoughts: It’s worthy of another blog post, which I hope to get around to soon. This system looks to be an effective and scientific way of learning characters, and really understanding the beauty and cultural context behind them. It also looks at the evolution of the characters, and how they are used in a variety of different context in language and society today. For a young child already with a good spoken understanding of Chinese, this would set them up well to succeed with the language. I was excited to try more of their online Chinese language classes for children.
[update October 2020: we’ve now done 10 Koala Know classes, so my detailed review!]

GenieBook Chinese Online Chinese Languages Classes Review

Trial Class Experience: This is more like an AI platform for learning Singapore MOE syllabus, which contains online assessments, and lectures which can be watched live, or replayed at a later time. There’s no speaking from the child, and the only interaction is through answering questions via chat forum to earn points for reards. It follows the Singapore MOE syllabus. A two week trial is possible, which eunabled unlimited classes during that period (for Chinese, Science, Math and English).

Booking Process: No need to book – it’s seminar-style with set 1 hour class times in evening during Singapore weekdays, or daytime on weekends.

Software: Zoom through their website

Customer service: Via whatsapp

Final thoughts: A lot of thought has gone into building weekly classes and curating sets of questions that mirror the very best of Singaporean test book publishers, and stories/interactive activities following the MOE textbooks. It’s designed for a child who already has a good written and spoken understanding of the language, to a Singapore Primary 2 level (about mainland Chinese grade 1) and is learning the MOE syllabus. For anyone outside of Singapore, I feel GenieBook is unlikely to be the solution for you.

[Jan 2022: See our detailed review of GenieBook Chinese here]

GoEast Online Chinese Language Classes for Children Review

GoEast: https://www.goeastmandarin.com/

Trial Class Experience: GoEast Mandarin is a renowned Shanghai-based language school founded in 2012, that offers both online and in-class tuition This is totally different from all the classes mentioned above too. No bells and whistles, no fancy platforms. The trial was simply a Zoom class conducted using PowerPoint slides. It’s a very simple set-up. In fact, when I first saw it in our trial, I thought….. there’s no way this teacher can engage my child for an hour like that! But Teacher Jenny 老师 did a phenomenal job.

It helped that before the class, the course consultant had specifically asked what interested my child, and then the Teacher chose the lesson and books to read all related to that (in our case, it was all amount animals). I had shared with the course consultant that I preferred my daughter not to have any English nor Pinyin used in the class, and they were flexible to cater for this.

Booking Process: You can sign up for the trial through the website – but scheduling requires actually talking to staff at GoEast. It’s a personal touch that differentiates their service. Timeslots are only during the day and early evening Shanghai time, so may not suit all geographies.

Software: Zoom. + PowerPoint

Customer service: Every interaction we’ve had with the GoEast team has been stellar. You can just feel that they are true language lovers, and want to share this love with their students. The teachers themselves are all university degree holders in Foreign Language studies or Teaching Chinese (actually many are Masters and PhD), and on average have more than 7 years teaching experience.

Final thoughts: For sure, the standout feature of GoEast are their TEACHERS. They’re passionate and skilled (with proper university teaching credentials), and a notch above anything we’ve experienced in any other online courses we’ve done (and we’ve done quite a lot). They have a small and highly qualified team of curriculum developers, language consultants and, of course teachers.

[update GoEast was my middle daughter’s favourite class option, see my detailed review of how the GoEast classes continued]

Some watch outs with online Chinese language classes for children

Language of communications: We soon realised after looking into a few options that timing and payment was by far easier if we engaged through company that had customer-service based in an English speaking country (Singapore, Hong Kong, US, etc), and can avoid inane conversations being translated through WeChat. You’ll see some for some of the larger Chinese-based companies even if they have an English version of their website, it’s likely that all the consultants who call will try to speak Mandarin, and the text messages / emails / class schedules etc will also be in Mandarin. Hence, all the companies listed in this review do have good English communications.

Privacy Laws and Domicile of the businesses: Privacy laws and Child Protection regulations clearly differ by jurisdiction, as does the enforcement of such rules. It’s worth noting you wouldn’t EVER want to agree to T&Cs which you cannot personally read yourself, so be wary if you’re clicking a check box about disclosures and acceptances when you cannot read the accompanying policies. Remember these classes will collect a lot of information about your child (audio, visual, demographic, learning patterns etc) which can all be very valuable in the wrong hands. Ideally choose a company which at least has a sub office or presence in your own country (or state), so they should be more aware with the local requirements.

Platform Used: By nature of these classes being over video, there could be recordings of your child being retained by the company, and it’s worthwhile to think where these might be stored or what they could be used for. Over Zoom or Classin, it’s unlikely to go far and you’ll know whether the class has been recorded. But if it’s on a private app or platform, you cannot be so certain. If in doubt, ask the company about their policies, and perhaps you make a decision not to use them, or keep the camera off. For us, we do not use the real names of our children on online platforms, since even if the teacher isn’t recording it, what if another excited parent on the chat takes a screen shot and shares it on their own IG account?

Computer vs iPad: some of the classes have a much better experience over computer than iPad, so be sure you’re using the medium which works best for that vendor. Additionally, a young child may have difficulty using the touchpad to draw / circle / point click (especially if character writing is involved). We found this can make or break the experience, so don’t let a frustrated child be put off forever just because the touch pad on the laptop was difficult to navigate. Try to get them a good quality mouse / stylus, and practice some basic skills before the class.

The outcome?

Our experience showed that online Chinese language classes for children can be engaging and fun, either 1-to-1 or in a group class, and that there are many highly immersive and well-structured curriculum available, both big and small. It is something we would certainly consider again, and looks like a great alternative to formal tuition centres.

Ultimately, we ended up signing up for more conversational classes through VivaLing for my elder children, with the same teacher (which we have continued with even after COVID lockdown lifted), because the flexibility to schedule classes whenever we want, and the one-on-one attention was what makes it the most enriching experience for us.

[Post script: Nov 2021: I have written a two year update on how we have continued with these online Chinese language classes for children.

Post script: May 2022: I f you want to know about newer classes which have recently come to Singapore such as VItamin M or Zhangman kid, see my 2022 blog post about online Chinese classes for children that you may not have heard of (yet)]

If you got to the end and found this helpful, maybe there are some other posts on my blog you might also enjoy. As a parent who doesn’t speak any Chinese, we’ve relied heavily on online tools, clever robots and recommendations of others in our Chinese learning journey. Some of my earlier posts are:

[Disclaimer: We did most of these online Chinese language classes for children as free trials initially – you can do this too! It’s not a privilege reserved for bloggers. Most online large online Chinese tutoring services will offer a free class (they’re backed by millions of investment dollars, and trying to grow rapidly!). Try to use someone else’s referral code too, to get the most benefit. Vivaling and Mandarin Tree are the two exceptions, who are not based in Mainland China, and they don’t usually offer free trials.]

Reading Pen Review: eTutor Education Star

What is a talking pen for learning Chinese?

Our house has many different reading pens to assist in our Chinese learning journey. One of those pens is the eTutor Education Star Pen (易笔通), which is what this review is about.

There are several other online reviews about eTutor Star Chinese pen …… from a quick google search prior to composing this post, it would seem that every other blog post about eTutor Pen was gifted the set from the manufacturers several years ago. Not us!! We did buy this pen at full price, online in 2020! So no bias here from LahLahBanana! This is a genuine and unaffiliated review.

Each of our family’s reading pens is used for a slightly different purpose, but essentially they will all read Chinese text from children’s books, when pointed at the specific page or character. I’ve put a comparison of how we use all our reading pens for learning Chinese in an earlier post.

The different reading pens assist our children to enjoy Chinese literature independently, and without screen time – and in the absence of a parent who can speak or read Chinese. So why would we buy the eTutor Star when we already have so many other Chinese reading pens? Here goes our explanation….

What is the eTutor Education Star Pen?

This pen is from Singapore, and retails at Popular Bookstore and online through the manufacturer’s website.

The EtutorStar Pen – like all of the reading pens we have – uses a combination of optical recognition technology and speech synthesis, to read traditional written books and magazines.

This particular pen is the only one on the market which reads the reads the common children’s Chinese magazines, and also the fortnightly publications which many of the Singaporean primary schools subscribe to. It can be used with 好朋友 (Hao Peng You), 知识报 (Zhi Shi Bao), 知识画报 (Zhi Shi Hua Bao), 新朋友 (New Friends), 新天地 (New World) and 新列车 (New Express), for all versions published from 2015 onwards. For us, this was the main reason we bought the pen. I think if you are a parent who grew up in Singapore, chances are these would be familiar names, as perhaps your parents or school would have subscribed to these magazines too!

For my daughter, as we’re unable to help her actively with her Chinese reading – we know that in 知识画报 magazine, there are often many words that are difficult to read and hence she would ignore entire sections of the publication. But with the reading pen, she does read along and go deeper into the magazine, and hopefully it’s not as daunting to open as before.

Chinese does seem to be a subject that many children have difficulty coping with, and many parents feel ill-equipped to support their children in. By the time P3 comes along, even children who were coping previously can start to have difficulties as the Chinese characters become harder to read, and more challenging to speak. The eTutor Star is the only one of our pens which has deep content for children at P3 level and above – I’ve actually even heard of a neighbour who only bought the pen when her child was in PSLE, to help him through the exams!

The pen can also read some English books and bilingual publications. A full list is available on their website. This lists includes the ETutor Star voice-enhanced learning series written based on MOE syllabus requirements (covering Oral, Listening Comprehension, Composition, Reading Comprehension).

Pros of the eTutor Star Pen?

Aligns with local Singapore school curriculum: This pen can read many of the MOE magazines which particular schools have on their books lists for primary schools P1 – P6. In particular for P1/P2, it’s 好朋友 and 新朋友 magazines. Apparently 80% of Singapore primary schools use these magazines. It’s also used by several of the large international Chinese bilingual schools in Singapore, including Eton House.
Compatible with books for pre-primary all the way through to PSLE: The pen will be able to have years of use, if you keep buying the relevant materials.
Easy to use: the pen is highly sensitive and simple to tape on the printed words, and it will read the whole paragraph. The audio is high quality and accurate pronunciation, which doesn’t go too fast.

Cons of the eTutor Star Pen?

Keeping content up-to-date: as new magazines are published fortnightly, the content of the magazine has to be downloaded from the website into the pen for it to be able to read it. It’s not hard, but it’s just an extra thing for a parent to remember, and an extra cable to keep in the cupboard.
Many other functions, like voice recording: This could be a pro or a con. For me, it’s a con, as we got the pen for the children to read independently. My eldest ends up playing around a lot with the voice recording function….. . I wish this attribute could be removed! That said, I’ve heard from a parent of an older child that the audio can be particularly helpful when they are practicing for oral exams, so maybe we’ll end up loving this unique feature.
Cannot read individual characters: It cannot read individual characters, and the child doesn’t need to move the pen through each words, so children have to follow with their eyes and read along as the audio file is played. I find a child can just blur-out and forget to follow along. This is true for most audio pens, which is why the Le Le Pen (reviewed here) is my preferred one as it can read the individual characters.

How is eTutor Star different to other pens?

ETutor Star is actually very similar to the Pen Pal Whizz in most respects. The difference is that because each pen is made very a different publisher, and thus has different books that it works with. Overall, the range between both of the Singapore manufactured pens (JLB Penpal Whizz and the eTutor Education Star Pen) are very similar, however we’d say the JLB range has higher quality books with better illustrations, which my younger kids prefer.

The eTutor’s main distinction is that can read some of the subscription fortnightly magazines which follow the Singapore MOE school syllabus (like “Zhi Shi Hua Bao“ 知识画报, and “Hao Peng You” 好朋友 ) which is why we ended up buying it to support my elder child’s studies.

I personally would think that you only really need one of these Singapore-made pens (either Pen Pal Whizz or eTutor), depending on which syllabus of books is most appealing.

I’ve also compared it to our other pens which we have in the table. You’ll see that the Le Le Chinese Pen and Luka are a totally different ball game, which is why we have all four! I have done a detailed review of our Le Le Chinese Pen here, which is more suitable for younger readers.

Comparison table of Chinese Reading Pens and Robots — Comparison of eTutor Star and other reading pens

Comparison of different reading pens for learning Chinese

Which Chinese Reading Pen is right for me?

ETutor Star is a good choice if you’re in Singapore and looking for something which can follow the local MOE Chinese syllabus through to P6.

Refer to my previous posts for more information about our other Chinese reading pens – these include:

Other tips for eTutor Star

Try to buy eTutor Star when it’s being promoted as on-sale at Popular bookstore. Sometimes the discounts or book bundles are up to 50% of original price value
You can buy full sets of back-dated bundles of magazines (eg from 2017 or 2018) at much reduced prices through the manufacturers website
It’s better for older children – whilst the compatible book-list includes toddler friendly texts too, I find the pen is more suited to Kindergarten and older children, as it has some extra functionality which our other pens don’t have (eg voice recording), and the shape of the pen isn’t as simple for a small hand to hold.

Virtual schooling through COVID

[Note -this was written in 2020; as at May 2021 when Singapore has re-entered a phase of Heightened Restrictions and school closures, I’ve written an updated post here with new resources]

In most countries, schools have closed, and the magnanimous task for parents of homeschooling begins. We’ve been doing it for over a month now, and expecting it to continue through until June 2020.

As full time working parents, we needed to rope in some extra ‘support’, especially when it came to Chinese learning. So here are our favourite online platforms for learning from (note – we paid full price for all subscriptions, so no favouritism here!).

Chinese

Some great online Chinese tutors exist. I’ve done a comparison of the difference classes we have tried here. Since schools closed, we have engaged a teacher for 2 x 25 minute classes each week for each child. They have a virtual chalkboard for sharing writing, reading stories together, etc, and option for homework each week too. If anyone is keen, I am happy to share a referral code to give a free Viva Ling lesson.

In addition, there are two great an iPad app called iHuman and Wukong Literacy which have graded syllabus and games. You can use the first 20 levels for free, which should be enough to get through the next month, otherwise it’s about SG$30/year subscription or about SG$90 for a lifetime subscription. iHuman is a little tricky to download without reading Mandarin.

English

For the last few years, we have been using ABC Reading Eggs. It can be trialled for free for 2 weeks, otherwise it’s about SG$70/year. The app caters from nursery level pre-readers through to upper primary. It’s also a graded syllabus of levels which get increasingly harder, and includes story writing competitions, comprehension, spelling units, and online books.

At the moment, another great tool is Audible Stories, which has beautifully recorded audio of many classics (and new stuff like Harry Potter!), and has been made available free during Covid.

Maths

There are heaps of options here. For my older kids, she is addicted to Matific Galaxy, which covers syllabus from K1 through to P6 in a fully gamified way. It’s simple for parents to get emails on progress, and places where the child has become stuck and needs extra revision.

I have also tried to use Koobits because it aligns with Singapore Primary Maths curriculum from P1 to P6. I really wanted to like it for this reason. It has typical Singapore style maths questions, and students can clock up rewards to get game sessions. Admittedly, the games are pure gaming, rather than maths, which annoys me, and the time limit of 30 minutes per game is quite long for a mother who tries to limit screen time. I find the cost is a little steep too, compared to Matific Galaxy or MathSeeds.

For the younger ones, we use MathSeeds as it teaches core math and problem solving skills in highly interactive lesson format. Unfortunately neither of these services has a free trial, but you could just sign up for a 6 months subscription, which is fairly reasonably priced.

Generally a trip to the park with a ball, kite, or frisbee is enough sport for us. However, if stuck indoors, a good free app is GoNoodle, which engages kids in movement and mindfulness activities. It’s available for free, and there’s plenty of Zumba, Kidsbop, and Yoga to get active with.

Music

Joy Tunes apps are our picks. We use their SimplyPiano and PianoMaestro tools, which have lessons from beginners to experts, and plenty of sheet music for popular songs. It’s a curated series of lessons, and the app can hear the sounds played on your piano (or your singing, your flute, etc) and give you instant feedback. Whilst the lessons are designed for piano, we’ve found it fun to try out with other instruments too with the musical games, and compete as a family for highest points. This also has a free trial for the first few levels. It doesn’t beat having the real piano teacher visit, but it does keep the kids practicing and getting excited about learning.

And after all that, don’t forget that your existing schools or tuition centres may have online classes. So you’ll have plenty of resources at your fingertips from around the world, many of which are available for limited amount of time for free. The trouble might be working out which out to try first!

In terms of a timetable, for us we write down each kids’ subjects on a popsicle stick, and also add one for outside play, and one for family chores. The kids have the freedom to choose their own ‘order’ for doing the tasks, but they must all be finished before 4pm. Between each ‘task’ they must have a ten minute no-device brain break (usually scribbling on chalk board, singing songs, playing with toys).

I can assure that that after a month of home schooling together, you’ll have learnt a lot about yourselves, and children, and no doubt will be closer, stronger and more united. Enjoy the unique opportunity to be at home and learning with your children! It’s once in a lifetime for most.

Le Le Chinese Review: Chinese Reading Pen and Character Learning System

What is Le Le Chinese Reading System and Pen 樂樂文化 ?

Le Le Chinese is a series of highly-engaging picture book graded readers (with versions available in both Simplified and Traditional Chinese), and it has on optional pen which can read the books. The intention of the books according to their author Cathy Lee is to “literacy through literature” – which is to say that by reading lots of books, the child will naturally pick up characters. The highly unique aspect of this pen, is you can point it at any Chinese character, on any page, and it will each individual character. For this reason, the Le Le books need no pinyin, and the child can focus fully on the characters.

The books come in three sets of 100, starting with “Red” set, then “Yellow”, and finally the hardest is “Green”. Each book is 8 – 10 pages. My K1 daughter is able to read most of the Red sets by herself, and then just get help with the harder parts. Likewise my P2 daughter can read most of the yellow set, and uses the pen to fill in the gaps. Meanwhile my toddler just uses the pen for everything! Each level introduces a few hundred new characters, which are then repeated in different contexts. So in total, the full set is 300 books, and cover over 1000 of the most popular Chinese characters.

It took the author years to write this set, which really is a lot of time to write a few hundred short sentences (especially as she had already written a previous set prior to Le Le, called Greenfields, which is also very popular)! However, the effort and passion put into these books is evident, and clearly worth it, as it’s culminated in a thoughtful and engaging syllabus. According to the author, the first level (red) was the hardest for her to make due to the limited characters to be used, yet the need to create interesting stories.

How do we use Le Le Chinese Books and Le Le Reading Pen?

Generally I like to read the books together with the children first – we aim for two books a day. They’re short stories, usually with a funny ending, so it’s a great use of ten minutes. I ask the children to read as much as possible without the aid of the pen, and also translate it page-by-page into English for me, so I can join in the giggles. Through reading these simple books together, I’ve picked up a lot more Chinese that I had expected to.

All of my daughters are able to use the pen independently, so I encourage them to re-read several of the books each day which we’ve already read together as a family. The pen lets them figure out new words, which means they doesn’t need to wait for my help to try and look at the character in Google Translate or the dictionary phone app. The concept allows a child to learn characters without the need for Pinyin or Zhuyin, and without the need for a Chinese speaking parent!

When I watch my daughters using it, particularly the younger ones will repeat what the pen is saying, so they’re learning by hearing, and practicing reading and speaking all at once. The speed of the pen is very slow, especially for the first two sets of books, which is beneficial for young readers who are still getting the hang of new words and tones.

Differences between the three levels of Le Le books

	Red (Beginner)	Yellow (Intermediate)	Green (Advanced)
Characters	~500 characters	Additional 340 characters	Additional 230 characters
Layout	Each page has a simple short phrase or word	Longer sentences and phrases with transition words.	Longer sentences, and multiple sentences per page.
Length	8 pages	8 pages	12 pages

Le Le comparison across the three sets

Le Le Chinese red series — Comparison of the red series (left) and yellow series (right)

Le Le Chinese yellow series — Comparison of the red series (left) and yellow series (right)

How is Le Le Chinese different from other Chinese reading pens?

I’ve compared Le Le our other pens which we have in the table below. I think you’ll quickly see that Le Le is more comparable to a learning system/ levelled reading curriculum, rather than a reading pen per se. There is huge value in the specially written 300 books which go with the pen. Which is why we have Le Le Chinese, AND our other pens!

How is Le Le system different to other graded Chinese reading systems like Sage Formula?

We’ve been lucky enough to borrow a few books from friends, before we settled on buying our own Le Le set. Several friends highly rated Sage Books (and we too bought this). Others swear by 4, 5 Quick Read System. Then, the Odonata series seems to be the most accessible to purchase in Singapore (and cheapest), so we looked at that too. Honestly, they all seemed interesting, but without having any native speaker at home, we really needed audio support along with the books. So, from the get-go, after a failed start with Sage Books, we were favouring Le Le due to the fact it had the Reading Pen. We also liked the fact that Le Le has 300 mini books, whereas the other systems had 10 – 40 books, but with more chapters. I would imagine that as a parent if you can read / speak basic Chinese, and have time to spend teaching the child together, these other systems would be highly accessible and cheaper option for you to consider.

[post script: as at May 2021, Odonata also now has audio through Luka Reading Robot, and we’ve also bought this series since we already had a Luka. It’s probably the most similar set of books we have to Le Le, and it much cheaper].

Pros of Le Le Chinese Books and Reading Pen

It teaches character learning, as it reads each individual character
The books are slimline and small, and come in their own zippable storage bag with handles, which is great for apartment living where we have limited space for a book library!
Clear, slow voice that is easy to understand, with adjustable volume
Books are sturdy and well made
Clear and realistic pencil illustrations
Covers a wide variety of topics which children will enjoy, including realistic and fictional
Most of the books have a fun (or funny) ending
No pinyin or English translations to distract the focus (although printable English translations are available on their website)
Good customer support, including Facebook support group and discussions

If you want to read in more detail about how this series assisted my struggling 7 year old daughter how to read 1000+ characters within 6 months, please see here.

Cons of Le Le Chinese Books and Reading Pen

No cons! It’s amazing! The cost might be prohibitive – but it’s an investment which you can probably sell on second-hand and it would retain a lot of its value, given the rarity in Singapore market. If cost is an issue, consider Odonata Levelled Readers as a more budget option (it doesn’t have the reading pen option though).

Which Chinese levelled reader is right for me?

Good question. Different reading sets have different emphasis and curriculum approach. It also depends on the Chinese reading ability of the parent (as not all books comes with a great reading pen such as Le Le). The Le Le Chinese learning philosophy is one of whole language learning through stories, and Le Le is really a stand out on this front (unless of course you want Pinyin included, and then Greenfield would be your better choice…. it’s actually done by the same author as Le Le).

Below is a highly simplified table where I’d tried to compare different levelled readers for different situations.

Which Chinese reading pen is right for me?

I think the question really should be which curriculum/book is right for our family, rather than the focus on a pen (see my point above). Different reading pens and curriculums suit different learning stages, ages, family situations, and intended learning outcomes. I’ve tried to summarise the world of different pens in the below diagram. Le Le Reading Pen is a superior choice if literacy and ability to read Chinese characters is the intended outcome.

Comparison of Chinese reading pens for children — Comparison of different Chinese reading pens and devices

Refer to my previous posts for more information about Chinese reading pens – these include:

Where to buy Le Le Pen in Singapore?

This pen is from Taiwan, so unlike other locally made pens (eg eTutor Star and Penpal Whizz), it is much much harder so source in Singapore, but truly the benefits are worth it. You may find a pre-loved set selling on Carousell, otherwise order online from Le Le Chinese Website in Taiwan. Shipping is not cheap, but for non-Chinese speaking parents, this system has enabled the children to exponentially learn new characters and is like no other which we’ve seen or tried. Occasionally you’ll find a Facebook Group Buy where Singaporean parents combine orders to get a discount, which is a good option if you have time to wait.

For my blog readers, I have a special 5% off discount for Le Le ……. enter code “LAHLAHBANANA” at checkout. This is a really special offer from the team at Le Le, as they don’t usually offer any discounts or sales. I’m so delighted I can share this with you.

What to read AFTER you have finished Le Le series?

Well that’s in a different post. I’ve made a list of bridging books which are great for children who have finished (or are nearing the end) of the Le Le sets.

Activities which go along with Le Le Chinese readers?

The topics covered in Le Le books are so broad, that they can fit in well with themes or other craft activities, making for a holistic learning curriculum. We have done some epic home-made craft based around the Le Le book topics. See my post here for a list of 20 simple preschool craft activities which match the individual Le Le books.

Le Le Chinese also run a lovely Facebook Group discussion for parents using the system, or considering the system, which is a good place to find like-minded parents or learn more about the investment. They run regular 14-Day reading challenges, and also offer some great online craft classes as incentives to keep kids reading. One of the rewards for completing the reading challenge is a one hour free online art / craft class from Language Art Fun, conducted in Mandarin, and they’re truly excellent.

Finally, if you don’t believe my word for it, look at what other bloggers have to say about Le Le, such as Motherly Notes or De Ziremi.

Additional Information

This entire blog is a passion project focussed on recommending apps and books which are helpful for families embarking on a Chinese learning journey, especially for those from predominantly non-Chinese speaking households. It’s based on the experience of our family, and our three happy bilingual kids. If you have found this post helpful, some other earlier posts you might like are:

I would love to hear from you too, especially if you have experience with other Chinese reading pens. It’s only through meeting other wonderful parents virtually, that this shared language journey becomes a more valuable one! Feel free to reach out via the comments/form on my blog, or else join the conversations on my Instagram @lahlahbanana or Facebook. All comments welcomed!