Category: English Reading

6 years old, English Reading, Kinder Reads

English Reading List 2018-2019

McG

English reading has been on my mind a lot lately and I’ve done some online research and asked experienced friends on how to progress English reading levels. My previous English posts here:

Several challenges presented themselves since he started Kindergarten last month:

  1. Life is very very busy. Aside from full-day school, he has many extracurricular activities now at that he didn’t have as a preschooler.
  2. One of my goals for him is to try different genres instead of sticking to his preferred. I would like to balance reading “fun books” and “classics”.
  3. How to gauge comprehension? Since he is left to read English silently to himself, how can I assess if he really comprehended the book?

This blog post is mainly about how I problem-solved the aforementioned challenges.

#1. Finding Time to Read

One thing that changed since starting Kinder is that he is completely wiped out by 8pm. As in his eyes are all puffy and he can barely keep them open. He has always done most of his reading before bed but clearly this would no longer work.

The other thing I realized is that my son really does best when he reads alone in his room. It’s impossible for him to read in the presence of other people because he wants to snuggle or talk or people watch or whatever. After a bit of trial and error, he now does his reading right when he wakes up in the morning from 7-8am. This is a sufficient amount of time where he is able to either finish a short chapter book or read several chapters from a longer book.

At bedtime I read to him in Chinese and his dad reads in English. He just sits back and listens. I am happy to report that this change in schedule is working very well.

#2. Balancing “Fun Books” and “Classics”

Depending on who you talk to, some will say let your kids read whatever they want. Others will say only let kids read “Montessori style” or “Charlotte Mason living books” or you’ll rot their brains.

I guess I would like to balance both. I read a lot of junk growing up and still enjoy it so I have no issue with my son reading useless crap like Plants vs. Zombies or Dog Man, as long as that’s not the only thing he reads.

Assessing Reading Level

I started by assessing his reading level using the San Diego Quick Assessment shared by Guavarama. I scored him strictly on this test even if the errors were slight, such as when he read “interrupted” as “interrupt” or “develop” with the wrong intonation. I’ve given such tests at work and know that scoring should be done very strictly.

The results turned out pretty much as I expected, with him able to read independently at “3rd grade level” and should be instructed at the “4th grade level”. This of course is not entirely true because he is 6 y.o. and does not have the maturity or comprehension of a true 3rd or 4th grader. In fact I would say that he has trouble reading some “2nd grade level” if it’s not a topic he is familiar with, but can read “5th grade level” if he’s interested and it has plentiful illustrations like Captain Underpants. 

I decided it would be appropriate for him to read books from 3rd-5th grade and found some recommended lists online and bugged my friends with genius kids with lots of questions. Amount of illustrations, size of font, length of book, child’s interests, etc. have to be considered as well.

Creating a Reading List

Several things to note about kids: 1) They like to have choices and 2) They like to see the covers of books. These are stated in Jim Trelease’ The Read-Aloud Handbook and I think holds true for most children.

Of all the books I shortlisted as appropriate for his reading level and age, I made a visual reading list using images from the internet, scotch tape, and a manila folder. It makes it much more captivating to see the pictures of books vs. if I just gave him a written list.

It’s also very important that he has choices vs. me saying this is the assigned book you’re going to read RIGHT NOW.

It’s been a couple weeks and the visual list is working out really well. He has read books I didn’t think he was capable of or interested in!

Two weeks ago:

Now:

I have all the books organized in order of reading level from The Magic Finger AR 3.1 (beginning 3rd grade) to The Mouse and The Motorcycle AR 5.1 (beginning 5th grade). I did not tell him this because it is for my own reference. I do not think AR levels are 100% accurate but are helpful as a guideline. As you can see, he is able to read across a range of reading levels and I do not discourage him from reading something that is “too easy” or “too hard”.

When he finishes a book, he moves it over from the “Books I’m Going to Read” on the right side to the “Books I’ve Read” bookshelf on the left. This is very motivating for him to have a goal and see his bookshelf fill up. 🙂

I also get him “fun books” such as graphic novels and 13-Story Treehouse series from the library. These are no-stress, enjoyable reads. He generally alternates between the “reading list” and “fun books”. After he finishes something challenging, he takes a break for a few days. I also encourage him to try more by the same author if he liked a book. For example after he read Roald Dahl’s The Magic Finger, he was inspired to read Matilda even though it’s not on the list.

#3. Assessing Comprehension

I usually spend most of our time together focused on Chinese and largely leave him to read English on his own. However my concern is how much he comprehends, particularly for lengthy books with few pictures, or books that have a lot of bombastic vocabulary (e.g. Roald Dahl) he may be unfamiliar with.

Anyway, I don’t want to give him a quiz or play 20 questions or have him write a book report. Those are all things I’m not too fond of. Instead, I came across the idea to have him do narration using five-finger retell (blog post about five-finger retell) (blog post about Charlotte Mason narration as a learning tool). Retelling is great not just for comprehension but also improves verbal skills and future writing skills. (How many times have we asked kids a question only to get a jumbled mess of an answer?)

We practiced a few times together with highly familiar short stories such as Little Red Riding Hood, Three Little Pigs, then less familiar stories, before I had him try on his own. For shorter books I have him retell the whole book, but for longer books such as Matilda I have him summarize a chapter. I do not do this every day! It would drive us both crazy. It’s more like every few days or whenever I feel like I need to do a comprehension check.

In Summary…

I feel like his English reading is on the right track and expect that at this rate he can finish this list by the end of Kindergarten or before. We do not have much time for English supplementation at home (no time even for English audiobooks, only Chinese) so this reading list and Lakeshore Daily Language Journal is all we are doing for now.

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5.5 years old, Bilingual Journey, English Reading, Learning to Read

End of Summer Update and Goals for 2018-2019

McG

Wow, I can’t believe summer is almost over and I am heading back to work soon. I figured I better blog because my memory is not that great and I tend to forget if not recorded down.

Three months ago I set some goals for us (blogged here). For those of us that live in the USA, three months of summer vacation is the perfect time to boost a lot of skills that we might not have time to during the school year.

Of course, summer is also the time for lots of sports and camps and activities. I am so thankful to have made some Taiwanese friends in our area this summer and our kids had a blast together.

Present Levels

Chinese

Huge gains in this area. Little Man speaks Chinese frequently now, to me, to himself, to his non-Chinese-speaking dad, to the dog…!!! He speaks Chinese loudly in public with no reservation and I can only hope this continues. Growing up in Singapore, I remember being ashamed to speak Chinese and avoided it for many years.

His vocabulary is increasing rapidly and he sometimes regurgitates 成语 or phrases from books. Yesterday he said people shouldn’t yell and should “轻声细语”, I was so shocked! His grammar is a little off at times but he is starting to use complex sentences to express himself.

He loves for me to read him Chinese books and yesterday we spent 1.5 hours reading Chinese books. Hard to believe that this same kid used to hate Chinese books! I do not pressure him to read during these times. I cherish the special bonding of me reading to him. 🙂

I can’t keep track of how many characters he knows. It’s about 1000+ and can read about 90% of the characters in children’s books. He continues to gain several characters every day and can read with and without pinyin 3000-character books. His pronunciation, though far from perfect, is much better than at the start of the summer.

English

Nice gains in this area as well. We started out the summer using a reading chart and timer. In July we faded out the reading chart, and in beginning of August also faded out the use of the timer because he doesn’t need them anymore! 🎉

He has developed some really nice reading habits — I am seeing more and more of him reading everywhere, in the car, on the toilet, during breakfast… 😀

He has recently developed the ability to read for over an hour (sometimes). I cannot tell you how happy this makes me because he has always been a fidgety one who cannot sit still. This month he finished almost all the A to Z Mysteries, re-read Captain Underpants, Usborne Illustrated Classics and Greek Myths, Illustrated Children’s Bible, and some Geronimo Stilton.

Audiobooks and abridged books seem to be a good way to introduce classics to him, e.g. he read the abridged version of Wizard of Oz and Greek Myths, and listened to the full version on audio.

I got some Great Illustrated Classics this week and I’m so happy he’s taken to them. He read Robin Hood in two days and just started Journey to the Center of the Earth. On a similar note I am also reading him the abridged version of 西游记.

Mostly I am letting him read English on his own. He reads his math problems out loud and he sometimes has trouble decoding people’s names or multisyllabic words. Science or non-fiction books is also a good way for me to check that he is reading long words accurately.

I’m trying to let go of the idea of “reading levels”. Yesterday he re-read some Dr. Seuss from when he was a toddler, then a children’s encyclopedia, then some dumb comics. Clearly his reading and interests span quite a wide range! As long as we have plenty of good books around I’ll just (try to) chill out and let him make his own selections.

Math

We are almost finished with Challenging Math Problems 1. Wow was it challenging! Little Man breezed through Singapore 1A and 1B so I think he expected to breeze through this book as well. It was quite a blow to his self-esteem and actually resulted in tears doing this book (he is not a kid who cries often).

The reason for the tears was that he did a whole page incorrectly and was upset he had to erase and re-do it. Word of caution to parents: you will need to support your child through this book! Do not expect to throw this workbook at them to do independently.

Anyway, as with all things, whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The last third of the book Little Man got the hang of it and became quite good and independent with completing 3-step word problems.

The biggest gains out of doing the Challenging Word Problems book:

  • Reading comprehension (really carefully between the lines for “clues”)
  • Logic (some of the problems are deliberately worded to confuse you)
  • Calculation (math operations to 100)

At this point he can add and subtract double digits mentally. He knows some simple multiplication and division but it was only briefly covered in this book and we didn’t have time to go more in depth into it.

Looking into next year…

It’s really hard for me to set concrete goals because a lot can change in a year’s time. Here are some non-specific goals I have for 2018-2019:

Chinese

Expect that he will read 3000-5000 character bridge books and stay at this level for a while. Little Man still has gaps in his Chinese vocabulary such as slang (e.g. 吹牛，開趴) and certain aspects of Chinese culture (e.g. school words like 班长, 值日生 and Chinese myths and legends) that he doesn’t understand, so he needs to spend more time building up on that. I do not think he can read full chapter books until he expands his vocabulary. Just because he can “read” the words (via pinyin) does not equate to comprehension.

I would also like to introduce some character writing using the Singapore P1 syllabus. In Singapore he would be P1 in 2019 so this corresponds to his age level.

English

Little Man will be in a Spanish immersion program so some level of supplementing English is necessary as well. I’m hoping it can be done more informally through a lot of reading and audiobooks because ain’t got no time for so many workbooks!

His dad reads to him from our non-fiction Usborne collection every night so I’m assuming he can continue developing higher-level vocabulary this way.

Math

Really torn about what to do for math. I know that we will need to continue math practice because otherwise he’ll just forget everything he’s learned this summer, essentially putting all our hard work to waste. Currently undecided on which math books to use.

Other thoughts…

Given that he will probably be pretty tired from a full day of kindergarten, I don’t want to give him too much additional work when he gets home. My plan is to keep to 30 minutes a day of Chinese “enrichment” or “mommy tutoring”, whatever you want to call it.

Informally, I would like to continue reading to him in Chinese an hour a day and have him read English himself an hour a day. This should be pretty relaxing and fun and doesn’t count as “work”.

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5.5 years old, Bilingual Journey, English Reading, Teaching Strategies

English Reading: Progressing to Chapter Books

McG

Little Man made some nice progress in English reading lately. Thought I would share some notes on here for others who are supplementing English at home as well.

This is Part III of my English reading posts. Previous posts: How to Teach Phonics and English Reading: Road to Fluency.

After putting a halt to English reading for the last ten months to focus on Chinese, I’ve gradually introduced more English back into our lives. We live in the USA after all and English has always been my priority. Truth be told, I view Chinese as a second language and more “extracurricular”.

Little Man has strong reading ability in English but does not often choose to read. I have some friends who tell me their kids read for hours and hours with no prompting whatsoever. Lucky them! My son happens to be a very active boy with limited attention span for books. It’s not that he doesn’t like them, it’s that he would rather be doing something else.

Tip #1: Remove Distractions

My son used to have an hour of screen time in the morning. On the advice of some good friends, I cut out that screen time. I also stopped buying him as many toys as I used to. The effect of reducing screens and toys is… he now spends more time reading. Voila!

Tip #2: Read, Read, Read (duh!)

From the day my son was born, I followed the pediatrician recommended 20-30 mins reading to him every day. It was not until recently that I realized that is grossly insufficient! My new standard is doing what other successful parents do, aiming for 2-3 hours a day.

Tip #3: Build Good Habits

My son used to only read before bedtime and never at any other time during the day. Since reading this excellent post by Growing Hearts 123, I implemented reading 3x per day: when he wakes up in the morning, before afternoon snack, and bedtime. He quickly got used to his new routine, kids learn fast! My friend Julie @ Motherly Notes says it only takes 21 days for kids to develop a new habit.

I also got him a timer to keep track of his reading time. He absolutely loves this little timer from Daiso and uses it all the time. He wakes up in the morning and immediately sets the timer and starts reading.

We started a reading chart in June with a special treat every 1000 minutes he reads. He was really into it at first but now rarely remembers to color his squares. He is still reading >100 minutes a day, but doesn’t need the prize anymore!!!!! That is power of habit.

Tip #4: Illustrated Novels

Graphic novels (different from comics) and heavily-illustrated chapter books have turned out to be a good bridge for him towards text-only chapter books. It takes kids a while to develop the skills to comprehend longer and more complex plots, so having more pictures is helpful and of course fun to look at.

It also looks less intimidating. Many kids see a whole page of text and immediately freak out.

Little Man has been a big fan of Captain Underpants for a long time and he recently enjoyed Usborne illustrated books, Amulet (graphic novel), Boxcar Children (graphic novel), 13-Story Treehouse, etc.

Tip #5: Choices

I suggest you borrow from the library so you can try everything for free. I find that my son is not so good at selecting chapter books for himself at the library. Instead, I do a bit of googling to find out appropriate books and pre-select a few series I think he would like. It is much easier for him to choose from 2-4 options than the 1000 options at the library.

Note: I am often wrong about what my child might like. I thought he would love funny stories like Junie B. and My Weird School. Nope! Instead he likes stuff like Greek Myths and Bible stories. So try everything, even if you don’t think your kid will like it.

Tip #6: Audiobooks / Read Aloud

And finally, most important tip. The way to transition from illustrated chapter books to text-heavy chapter books is… read them to your kid. Be a salesperson! Sell the book! Suck them in! When I think back to all the books I loved as a kid, they were all “promoted” to me by others.

Highly recommend for all parents to read Jim Trelease’ The Read-Aloud Handbook. I’ve owned this book for a couple years and still gain so much every time I re-read it. In it he talks about how important it is to read chapter books to young children, starting from 3 or 4 years old, to train their listening skills. I wish I did more of this when he was younger.

True Story: Last week I got the A-Z Mysteries audiobooks to play in the car. After listening to it, my son is now zooming through the books, reading one every day.

The basic principle is, keep reading harder books to your kids and they will read harder books to themselves. I do this for Chinese as well.

Questions? Comments? You can leave me a message on Facebook or Instagram.

English Reading

Parent Guide to Teaching English Phonics

McG

Teaching a child to read does not have to be a painful, difficult, expensive, or time-consuming process. If you know me then you know I like to do things FAST and only spend money when I have to. Like seriously why pay hundreds or thousands when you can do it for (almost) free. I routinely receive catalogs at work for reading programs that cost thousands of dollars, which is utterly ridiculous.

This post is a prequel to my post English Reading: Road to Fluency. Sorry for posting them backwards. These phonics (or phonological awareness) skills can be introduced from a young age, around 1.5 years old.

A few things to note:

  • Follow your child’s pace. Step 1 took us several months to master, but Step 4 a single day!
  • Make use of down time, such as car rides, bath time, waiting time, etc. to review these skills. Most of these don’t require any materials and can be done anytime, anywhere. 🙂
  • Five minutes of practice 3-5x a week is far better than drilling for an hour 1x a week.
  • Steps 1-5 are commonly referred to as phonics or phonological awareness. These skills will not only help your child read English but are also transferable to reading pinyin, zhuyin and indeed any phonetic language.

The best age to start teaching is highly subjective – I will leave it to your parental judgment! I introduced the first few steps to my son when he was around 1.5-2.5 y.o. The concept of rhyming did not “click” with him until 3 y.o.

Step 1. Teach the letter names. Use refrigerator magnets or alphabet puzzles or flash cards and present 1-2 uppercase letters at a time. If your child is older, you can teach 4 or more letters at a time. Point them out in different places such as books, toys, and road signs, and repeat them over and over until your child remembers them. Gradually add a few more until the whole alphabet is learned. Repeat with lowercase letters.

alphabet puzzle
Alphabet Puzzle

Step 2. Teach the letter sounds. The easiest way to do this is to buy this Leapfrog: Letter Factory DVD for $7 at Amazon/Target, or watch it for free on Netflix. Sing the songs e.g. “M says mmm, M says mmm, every letter makes a sound, M says mmm” on repeat and be silly and dramatic when you do the actions. Since letter sounds are inherent in the letter names, it should not present much difficulty for the child to learn them.

leapfrog.jpg

The most important thing to note is to pronounce the sounds correctly! Many people make the mistake of saying B makes the “bah” sound. I have even seen YouTube videos of this! (Also note that pinyin/zhuyin is NOT pronounced bo po mo fo!) This is absolutely incorrect and will make your child unable to blend sounds later.

Step 3. Identify the first sound in words. Teach your child to listen for the first sound (not letter) in a given word. Use an exaggerated voice by really strreetching out or emphasizing the first sound to make it more obvious to the child. “What sound does dog start with? /d/, /d/, dog!”, “What sound does snake start with? /ssssss/, snake! Snake starts with the /s/ sound.” Do this with your child’s favorite toys and people’s names to increase interest and motivation

Step 4. Blending words and syllables. Play a guessing game with your child by saying “Did you know that you can join 2 words together to make a longer word? Hot and dog make… hotdog! Butter and fly make… butterfly!” You can use a printable to make it more visual, but I prefer to just do it verbally. Not only does it save you time and paper, but more importantly it trains your child’s ears 👂 to listen carefully and develop keen sound awareness.

After your child is able to blend compound words, the next task is to blend syllables, starting with 2-syllable words. Choose motivating words such as family members’ names or your child’s favorite characters, e.g. “Guess what this word is… Mic… Key. Mic and key make… Mickey!”. Repeat this with 3-syllable words. “Guess this word… Trans… for… mer. That’s right, Transformer!”

Step 5. Rhyming. Read lots of nursery rhymes and books such as The Cat in the Hat. Young kids love Dr. Seuss and they are a great way to introduce some rhyming fun! Point out the rhyming words e.g. “Cat… hat. That rhymes! They both end with at.” My favorite Dr. Seuss book to teach rhyming is There’s a Wocket in my Pocket. After reading the book a few times and the child is familiar with it, leave out the last word and let the child fill-in-the-blank. “There’s a Zlock behind the… (Clock). That’s right, Zlock rhymes with clock!”

rhyming-roundup-pinterest
Source: Pre-K Pages

Make up silly rhymes for everything. Your child’s name, your dog’s name, the teddy bear… Teddy Meddy Weddy Zeddy. The sillier the better. 😉 Also point out non-examples “Cat… hat… mat… jump. Wait a minute, jump doesn’t rhyme. It doesn’t sound the same at the end.”

After Steps 1-5, give your child and yourself a big thumbs up 👍 for completing all the necessary pre-literacy skills. Now you’re ready for the serious stuff.

Step 6. Reading lessons. Head over to Amazon and purchase the book The Reading Lesson: Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Lessons. You can also download the first two lessons for free on the authors’ website. It is parent-friendly, child-friendly, extremely affordable at around $20 (price fluctuates a bit), and really well designed.

The authors recommend doing one page a day for kids age 5 and under, but being a little impatient and a tad bit overzealous, I chose to cover two pages a day. At that rate we finished the book in four months. That’s right, from reading ZERO words to reading 1st grade level in four months!

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$20 book that taught my child to read

Step 7. Celebrate! 🎉 Congratulations, you now have a reader! The satisfaction of teaching your own child to read is pretty darn amazing. You have given him or her a gift that keeps on giving for a whole lifetime. 🙂

img_6235
HAHAHA! I miss his baby face!

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English Reading, Learning to Read, Teaching Strategies

English Reading: Road to Fluency

McG

One of my friends asked me the other day what my son is reading now (in English) because she wanted some ideas for her kids. This made me think that I should document the books Little Man read from when he was a beginning reader until now, as a reference for parents teaching their kids to read in English.

Background: I taught him English phonics between the ages of 1.5-3 years old, then taught him to read at 3 years 2 months old using the reading curriculum The Reading Lesson: Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Easy Lessons. It took us four months to complete it, by the end of which he could read at about first grade level.

From 3.5 y.o. on, we practiced reading increasingly longer and harder books (see our reading list below) and it took him approximately 12 months to become a fluent reader. What I mean by fluent is he can read without thinking/hesitating and can read books by himself that he’s never read before.

Around 4.5 y.o., he could read a few chapter books Magic Tree House and Boxcar Children but he did not really enjoy those. He then fell madly in love with Captain Underpants (and Super Diaper Baby and Dog Man by the same author), which skyrocketed his reading ability to around 3rd grade level.

Now at 5 y.o., he desperately wants to read “grown up” books like Harry Potter, which he has tried three times (unsuccessfully) to read. He is able to read the words but cannot comprehend the complex plot and flashbacks because he is after all only 5 years old.

But, I am happy to report that he has now found a happy middle of reading books that are appropriate for his age and ability. I am absolutely thrilled that he has taken to reading non-fiction lately, which he has never shown interest before.

Back to what this post is about. Here’s a list of books that he read from 3.5-now. I don’t keep track of all the books he read, but these ones stuck out in my memory as being significant. FYI just borrow the beginning readers (BL 0.7-1.7) from the library. Libraries have hundreds of beginning readers and they are not worth buying IMO because 1) the stories are dumb, and 2) they get outgrown quicker than you can blink.

ATOS Book Level are shown in parenthesis, e.g. 0.7 level means can be read by a typical kindergartner in the 7th month of school, 1.2 means 1st grade 2nd month. I find ATOS levels to be inflated and always mentally take a year or two off. For example, Magic Tree House is listed as a 2.6 but most kids I know read it around K-1st grade.

To find the ATOS book level (BL) of any given book, go to this website and search the title. As you can see, “One Fish Two Fish” is listed as BL 1.7.

Capture.PNG

Some publishers (e.g. Usborne) provide Lexile measures instead of ATOS. They can be converted using the chart here, e.g. Lexile of 440 corresponds to ATOS 3;0.

Books Little Man read, in order of difficulty:

Starfall Learn to Read (N/A)

Scholastic Sight Word Tales (N/A)

I Can Read, Step Into Reading, Scholastic Level 1 and Level 2 readers (BL: 0.7-1.7)

Elephant and Piggie series (BL: 0.7-1.1)

Dr. Seuss Beginner Books series (BL: 1.2-1.7)

Dr. Seuss I Can Read It All By Myself series (BL: 1.5-2.1)

DC Super Friends Story Collection (BL 1.2-1.6)

Fly Guy series (BL 1.2-1.7)

Lego DC Comic Readers series (BL 2.4-2.8)

Katie Woo series (BL 1.9-2.2)

Amazing Adventures of Superman series (BL 2.7-3.1)

Nate the Great series (BL 2.0-3.1)

National Geographic Readers (BL 2.9-3.9)

Magic Tree House series (BL 2.6-3.3)

Captain Underpants series (BL 4.3-4.7)

Dog Man series (BL 2.6)

Where the Sidewalk Ends (N/A)

Wayside School series (BL 3.3)

Currently reading: 

Usborne One Hundred Illustrated Stories (BL 4.1)

Usborne Stories from Around the World (BL 3.1)

Usborne Non-Fiction Beginning Readers (BL 2.9-4.5)

National Geographic First Big Book of Space (BL 4.1)

Random Notes:

  1. There is no point in pushing too high of a reading level. This is because books that are of higher reading levels are often of inappropriate content for young children. It appears to me that 3rd grade reading level is where he will stay for a while and it will not get any higher than that because he cannot comprehend even though he can read it.
  2. On the other hand, I caution you about waiting too long to teach your child to read because early readers have really dumb storylines like “A wig on a pig”, “The cat in the hat”, etc. An older child will find it extremely frustrating when they want to read more interesting books but their ability only allows them to read baby books. (Little Man currently has this problem in Chinese which he is very frustrated by).
  3. I’ve always tried to get him interested in non-fiction but failed. A few weeks ago, he suddenly picked non-fiction and now loves to tell me facts that he learned from books. JOY OH JOY!! Goes to show sometimes you just have to be patient and wait for time and development to take its course.
  4. The most important factor is to hook your child by finding books he/she absolutely loves. Looking back, he made huge jumps in reading ability when he encountered certain series that were highly motivating, like Lego DC comic books (jumped from 1st to 2nd grade) and Captain Underpants (jumped from 2nd to 3rd grade).
  5. Because of the huge selection of English books available (sadly not so for Chinese), you can easily find books of your child’s interests at different reading levels. E.g. He loves DC superheroes and I found K, 1st, 2nd grade level superhero books by searching on Amazon.
  6. He slowly became able to read everything around him like signs, recipes, instructions etc., a process that took around 12 months and I don’t think can be rushed. And this is in his first language English! I wonder how long Chinese fluency will take.
  7. Listening to audiobooks (or adult reading aloud) helped my son bridge to chapter books because he was already familiar with the stories. He loved the audiobooks: Where The Sidewalk Ends, Nate the Great, and Sideways Stories From Wayside School. Unfortunately, due to our focus on Chinese in recent months we do not listen to English audiobooks anymore. 😦
  8. He is now independent in English reading (except for the occasional word) and I only read to him in Chinese. He keeps wanting to read “grown up” books I keep assuring him it’s ok to read picture books. We’ve found a compromise with Usborne story collections which he likes because they are thick and “grown up looking” and I like because he can comprehend the stories. Joke books, poetry collections, comics are also a good fit for him now.
  9. I have an ongoing struggle with getting him to read more. He is not a natural bookworm like some kids are, and rarely picks up books on his own. We have mandatory reading time in the morning and evening, and he recently made up his own rule that he gets evening screen time if he reads 100 pages that day. I have no problem with this!

Anyway, I hope this is a helpful starting point for you. The key to English reading is simply to 1) teach your child to read (phonics) and then 2) keep reading longer and harder books until you achieve fluency. I’d like to think that Chinese will be a similar process but the problem with Chinese is no book levels so I have to make my own guesstimates for book levels. This is the current pain in my neck!!!!

I don’t claim to be any form of expert in English or Chinese reading. Just sharing our experience with you — take of it what you will. As always, I try to be objective in my information and not humblebrag too much. 😛

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