Building a reading habit is by far the best way to improve in Chinese. Empirically speaking, students who have regularly read Chinese stories do significantly better and enjoy the language more.

The problem is how? Especially for students who currently dislike Chinese.

That’s when I decided to set myself a reading challenge.

You see, I haven’t read a Chinese novel in years, and my vocabulary isn’t great (aka similar to the situation most Singaporean students find themselves in). To better understand what they were going through, I aimed to spend 10 mins reading Chinese daily and see a) how hard it was, and b) how much improvement I would see.

The results might surprise you!

CONCLUSION – Starting a reading habit is hard initially, but it works wonders

Since I hadn’t read a proper Chinese book in years, reading was both slow and painful, and my vocabulary was rusty.

It didn’t help that I made a horrible mistake by choosing a book that was too difficult (see “Pitfall” below), and I was ready to give up after a few days.

But I persevered, and after two weeks, I noticed reading was slightly easier, especially as I used a browser-based dictionary that instantly told me the meaning of unknown characters as I hovered over them.

After two months, I added close to 350 words to my flashcard app (unknown words from the books), which helps me revise and learn these words. Fast-forward to today, after reading 10-20 books in ~7-8 months, my Chinese standard has never been better.

Reading daily has become a habit, which will only pay future dividends. I’m really glad I started this challenge, and I’m 100% confident your children will see similar improvements if they read 5-10 mins a day in 2023.

Especially if you avoid the following huge pitfall.

PITFALL: choosing too-hard material KILLS the interest

The common adage is it takes 21 days to form a habit, and that it’s the hardest at the start.

That’s why so many teachers tell parents to choose books that their kids will like, from comics to thematic stories (i.e. choosing a book set in a car fantasy world for kids that like vehicles, etc).

But if this alone was sufficient, why do so many Singaporean kids refuse to read Chinese stories? I think it’s because we don’t pay enough attention to finding material of suitable difficulty.

Personally, when I first began the reading challenge, I started with the web novel “Legend of Fuyao” since I was hooked on its TV adaptation. Except after the first day, I was ready to give up – the material was way too hard for me and it was incredibly frustrating.

Thankfully, I found another web novel that was suitable for my level, was equally interesting, and took just a few minutes a day to read. And since reading it wasn’t painful, it was easier to form my Chinese reading habit.

I later learned that studies indicate you need to know ~98% of the vocabulary in a text to read it and not be frustrated. So the next time your child is picking a book (or when you are selecting a book), flip open to the first page and ask your child how many words he or she doesn’t know, and how easy it is for your child to understand.

Remember: at the start, our primary goal is to let our children feel that “reading Chinese isn’t too bad – it takes just 5-10 mins, and it’s easy”. When humans find something easy, they are much more likely to do it!

But isn’t 98% vocabulary way too high a bar – most Singaporean kids struggle with vocab, and wouldn’t that mean they can’t read anything?

TIP 1: Use pictures, animation or read-aloud to improve comprehension

Growing up, I loved watching wuxia TV series even though the books were way too difficult for me. That was because with video, I didn’t need to recognise every single word to understand what was going on, and thus I wasn’t frustrated.

Pictures provide a similar benefit, and hence many parents are eager to buy Chinese picture books for their kids. There’s just one problem: the picture books that a Singaporean primary child can actually read are probably meant for native preschoolers in China.

A Singaporean primary schooler might be able to understand it language-wise, but content originally written for preschoolers is likely too babyish for a primary school student to want to read.

We found that animated stories are a great solution. Children of all ages like animation, while the video format and read-aloud allow children to understand what is going on even if they don’t recognise all the words. Over time, kids will naturally absorb words like a sponge, improving their vocab and grammar structure organically.

At VocabKing, we’ve created 100+ animated stories that’s interesting enough to cater to a wide audience (3-12 year olds), while incorporating words that’s taken from the MOE primary school syllabus (see example of a story below)

TIP 2: Make reading short, regular sessions

At the start of every year, millions of adults make New Year Resolutions, but 80% of resolutions fail by February. A big part of this is that we gravitate towards big actions but it’s much harder to sustain such drastic changes, and before the habit is formed, most people tend to give up.

The key to creating lasting change is to instead take small incremental steps (e.g. “every morning when I wake up, I’m going to do 10 push ups” instead of “I’m going to the gym three times a week”).

Similarly, kids are more likely to reject painful 1-hour revision affairs, but will more likely agree to daily 5-10 mins reading sessions. Not to mention, once they start, they are likely to continue for much longer than that if they enjoy the book.

And as your child gets comfortable with reading, he or she will naturally build the habit of reading Chinese regularly, which will naturally strengthen his or her foundation, helping them like the language.

TIP 3: Track your progress and revise words

It’s much easier to like something you are good at or something you are making improvement in.

Some people like to track the number of books they’ve read, while others like to track the number of characters read (doable if you use a reading app).

Personally, I like to track the number of words learned. Whenever I come across an unknown word, I check its meaning, and if it’s important, I’ll add it to my flashcard app for revision. Looking at the total number of words to my flashcard app motivates me as I can see myself improve week on week (e.g. “I knew 10 words last week, but I now know 20” is motivating).

In addition, adding new words to your wordlist and revising it is a key component to improving. While your child certainly can learn new words just by encountering it several times, adding it to a structured revision system makes learning significantly faster.

At the end of the day, the most important thing is to have a metric that your child can point to and feel like he or she is improving, as that will naturally encourage him or her to continue.

SUMMARY

The long-term solution to getting good at Chinese is to encourage daily reading and revision. It doesn’t take much time – just 5 mins reading and 5 mins revising of vocab will set your child up for both academic success as well as the ability to use Chinese outside of school.

The start is the hardest and once your child gets in the habit of reading Chinese, it’s easy to continue.

If you aren’t sure of how to begin, our VocabKing portal has over 100 animated books, each with read-aloud, animation and vocabulary quizzes that help students learn through reading. Importantly, these stories are written specifically for Singaporean students, and incorporate words taken from the primary school syllabus. We provide a free 7-day trial, and whatsapp us or see here for more information.