Bao & Bun's Bilingual Journey

I’m not sure when it happened, but it seems that all of a sudden, Little Bun is able to read Chinese books at a much faster pace and tackle much longer books. Just the other day, she finished a bridge book, 露露與菈菈, in one sitting. Although she still makes mistakes with certain phrases and doesn’t always ask me about unfamiliar words, her new tutor reminds me not to nitpick. The important thing is for her to keep reading, reading, and reading.

Seeing her brother still struggling with reading, Little Bun has definitely had an easier time with it. I should find a new goal for her this summer and am considering encouraging her to do some creative writing, like keeping a Chinese diary. As her speaking, listening, and reading skills strengthen, she seems ready for bigger challenges, such as learning idioms and using them in sentences.

The new tutor will be using the second-grade second-semester textbook for the class. I’ve been in touch with this tutor for quite a while now, and I hope it will be a good fit. I’ll share more about this later.

Her Chinese online group lessons have a few final classes over the next few weeks. I’ve noticed she has become one of the stronger students in the class. I assume most students don’t attend bilingual or Mandarin immersion schools, so the weekly online class is their only Chinese learning time. For Little Bun, she’s learning a bit from her Mandarin immersion school, but I think her most significant progress comes from reading 88 books (as of 6/9/24). Her reading has become fluent and noticeably improved over the last month.

For those 88 books, we tackled 10 at a time, usually with 6-8 picture books and 2-4 bridge books. But the current set, 81-88, are all bridge books, making me feel like we’ve come a long way. It’s also been about a year since she finished Sagebook. For any parents wondering how to boost their kids’ Chinese reading after Sagebook, I suggest starting with picture books. It’s not just character recognition that’s needed to read bridge books; the stamina to read longer texts and familiarity with written language are also essential and require practice. I really believe leveled readers can’t replace real books, whether they’re picture books or bridge books. Having kids read actual books takes a lot of time, but it seems like it’s necessary.