As parents, we all know how important reading is to doing well in Chinese. The question is: how do I encourage our children to actually read.

In this post, we interview 林老师, a Chinese teacher whose daughter Jane* is currently in a top SAP secondary school and is able to read Chinese novels like 活着 independently.

* Not their real names

You might be thinking: “obviously her daughter can read well – her mother is a Chinese teacher.” However, like most Singaporean kids, Jane is far more comfortable in English than Chinese, and didn’t want to read Chinese books for most of primary school, and 林老师 doesn’t teach Jane Chinese.

*The following conversation was originally in Chinese, and translated by me

Q: What is the most important thing you did to help Jane love reading?

The most important thing I did is focusing a lot on reading when Jane was in preschool.

Most parents know that preschool is the Golden period for language acquisition, where they can pick up new words like a sponge. What most don’t realise is how much easier it is cajole preschoolers into reading.

Preschoolers naturally want to spend time with their parents, and almost all kids love stories, so it was quite easy to encourage reading. I started with reading to her nightly, and then encouraged her to read stories on her own.

Q: What are some common mistakes you see parents make when it comes to reading to their preschoolers?

The biggest mistake I see parents make is choosing not to read to their preschool kids because they are afraid their pronunciation isn’t perfect and might teach kids the wrong things.

It’s much more beneficial for kids to get exposure to Chinese books at an early age than to have no exposure at all. Even if kids pick up pronunciation mistakes, they will be quickly corrected in school.

Q: Did your daughter (Jane) continue to read Chinese books when she went to primary school?

When Jane entered primary school, she suddenly became much only interested in reading English books, and for a period of time, would refuse to read Chinese books.

Q: Why do you think that happened?

I think when kids go to primary school, they naturally become more independent. And kids have a lot less free time, and if they have to choose between English and Chinese books, they naturally prefer to read English books.

In primary school, she had her own preferences about what she wants to do or read. And I needed to respect that, otherwise she would end up hating Chinese anyway. But at the same time, I also wanted her to continue to read Chinese books.

Q: I’m sure many primary school parents are in similar situations. So what did you do?

Well, I explained to her the importance of reading some Chinese books, even if she greatly preferred English books.

And then I would negotiate with her: If we went to the library, I told her for every 10 English books you borrow from the library, you need to borrow three Chinese books.

Or for every 1 hour of English reading you do, you need to allocate a certain amount of Chinese reading time.

Q: Many parents have tried something similar, but their kids end up back from the library with all English books. What is the difference? 

I think the difference is the vocabulary foundation Jane built in preschool stayed with her, so even if she preferred reading English books, reading Chinese books wasn’t painful for her.

So it was easier to persuade her to read at least some Chinese books, which ensured her vocabulary foundation remained solid.

And when she got to P5 and P6, she realised if she wanted to do well for PSLE and go into her dream school, she would need to read more Chinese books.

Q: Could you give some suggestions to parents on how to encourage their kids to read Chinese books?

Of course. If you are a preschool parent, now is the best time to build that foundation. If you can build a habit of reading to your child for 15 mins every night, your child’s foundation will improve tremendously over time, and that will make primary school much easier, for both you and your child.

For primary school parents, if your child can recognise most of the characters but takes a long time, reading will be doable but more tiring at the start. Encourage him or her to persevere, because the start is the hardest and eventually it will become easy.

If your child has issues recognising characters which makes reading too difficult, you can start by focusing on common vocabulary first. Build up a base of words, and then start with easier books.

Q: If you could summarise everything, what would be the key takeaway?

Start building the reading foundation as early as possible, especially for preschool parents. Vocabulary foundation is built over time, so the earlier kids start reading Chinese, the easier it becomes.

*End of Translation

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