Squid for Brains picture books have fun, readable and accessible content for beginners learning Chinese as a second language. They are designed based on the theory of comprehensible input. combined with a dose of good humour.
Category Archives: Early literacy & character learning
Le Le Flash Cards for learning-to-read in Chinese
Le Le flash cards are designed to reinforce learning from the Le Le Reading System.
Little Sheep Goes up the Mountain 小羊上山 Review – Chinese Levelled Reader
Exciting new series of graded readers released in 2020 & 2021, by the same authors as Disney I Will Read, but SO much better! This book set is an excellent choice for any child who is starting learning to read, and it won’t break the budget either.
Building a Chinese book library at home for children
This post outlines how you can go about creating your own children’s Chinese book collection at home, and what to think about as you do it. It includes the types of books we have by age, genre and author, and also where they came from. Lots of geeky charts and graphs.
Extensive Reading: The secret to learning Chinese
Extensive Reading has been the key to our family’s Chinese learning. It’s about reading widely for pleasure, focusing on of texts where >98% of words/characters are known. This post describes how the approach works, and how stress free it can be. Don’t focus on teaching the child 500 words; focus on setting up a love of literacy for life.
Comparison of character lists in Chinese graded readers
This posts compares the character lists between three famous Chinese levelled reader series, being Sage 500 Books, Odonata Readers and Le Le Chinese. Posts compares differences and overlap. It outlines outlines key differences, with a focus on the first 500 characters used within each set.
Odonata Chinese Levelled Reading Series: Review
A review of Odonata Graded readers, which area well written series for learning 1200 Chinese characters. The books have a clear layout, large font, and no HYPY, and importantly, will not break the bank (unlike some other famous levelled readers, which are quite an investment). Click above to read more.
Graded Reader Review: Disney I Will Read by Myself series 迪士尼我会自己读第
The Disney “I Will Read By Myself” Learning series 迪士尼我会自己读第 are excellent levelled readers and certainly tick all the boxes of what to look out for in a good Chinese reading set. They engage children using stories and Disney characters which they will be familiar with, and are written in Simplified Chinese, with no pinyin or English translations. The book range covers a good mix of a Disney classics – with less emphasis on Disney Princesses, which makes them good for both boys and girls.
Chinese bridging books for children: What to read after your child knows 1000 characters
This post summarises Simplified Chinese bridging books, arranged by length and character complexity. These are the ideal early chapter books to move onto AFTER your child has finished up graded reader sets like Sage, Le Le, Odonata or 四五快读. Get reading to read, read read!
Top apps, books, blogs and learning tools for a child learning Chinese
Top recommendations for books, apps and learning resources to help your child learn Chinese