Bao & Bun's Bilingual Journey

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How to get your child to read?

In my recent update for Little Bun, I mentioned that her current goal is simply to read, read, and read. While this advice is nothing new and has been echoed by many bloggers, I realize that just a year ago, I was one of those parents who had no idea how to get my kids to read a lot. So, I thought I’d share a bit more about our process.

Like many things in life, there isn’t a secret method to achieve this goal. It’s a manual process with no real shortcuts. When I set the goal of 100 books for Little Bun last year, it was just a way to keep track of how many books she read. The process wasn’t as simple as her picking up a book and starting to read. Just like all the other kids her age (5-6), all they want to do is play. So the reading part is kind of directive. Basically, if I find a time that we don’t have homework or other things to do, I will tell her that let’s read a book. I will first ask her to pick a book from the bookshelf. Sometimes she’ll pick a book but often, her focus is still on other things so I have to pick a book for her.

When we start reading, I’d sit with her and hear her read. Help her with certain words she doesn’t know when she doesn’t want to be bothered reading the zhuyin. So I have to basically sit through the entire reading process. This is time-consuming but before she builds a habit of reading on her own, I found this 共讀/陪讀 (reading together) is necessary. Sometimes I also need to nag her to read. This past year wasn’t as easy as just asking her to finish reading books and having her do it. Though the nagging part is not as bad as with Little Bao, I am still the initiator of the reading process.

And like the last update I did, it seems like the constant reading has helped build a habit for Little Bun. But nothing just comes like magic. It did take us a year to get there. And with more difficult books I will give her, I think the reading together process will continue.

For any parents out there, I hope you don’t get frustrated with this process or just let kids use reading pens without working with them together. I found that building a habit of reading takes a lot of effort but the reward is visible.

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Responses to “How to get your child to read?”

  1. KWu

    Do you have a sense of how much in the course of a week that you spend focusing on Chinese reading with her? I’ve been working on Sagebooks with my almost 7yo since September at a rate of 10 min a day. I wish it were a bit more, even 15 min, but establishing the 10 min habit is still meaningful so far. When my younger kids are of age to do Sagebooks with them as well, it just feels like it’ll be a lot to do 10 min 1:1 with each of my 3 kids every day but I’m trying not to worry about it too much until we’re actually there, since what we’re doing right now has been working well enough.

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    1. Grace – Bilingual Working Mom

      Great question!
      I should be more specific about what books we’re reading. For Little Bun, she reads picture books and bridge books. Some books are longer so we spend about 10-15 mins for each book and about 4-6 times a week. So the total is around 40-90 mins a week. Calculating like this, I don’t think she spends that much time on reading. But like what everyone says consistency is more important. It seems like it’s more important to have them read some every day or every other day than spending just once a week and read one full 30 mins.

      For my son, he’s reading Greenfield books. So the amount of time he spends on reading is even less. Each book is about 3-5 mins and we only do 4-5 books a week. I’d love for him to read more but with school, online classes and other activities, I can’t seem to find more time for him to read.

      But these are just the time for them to read to me or with me. I read at least one book to 4 books to them every night before bed. Based on what I read from other people who has older kids, reading to them seems to be still very important and I’ll keep doing it until they don’t want me to do it anymore.

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      1. KWu

        That sounds wonderful! I could definitely do more of consistently reading to my kids, which right now only happens very sporadically when they happen to ask me for a Chinese book and I’m available.

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      2. KWu

        Oh also, I really appreciate this sentiment: “Like many things in life, there isn’t a secret method to achieve this goal. It’s a manual process with no real shortcuts.”

        Like I fretted for some time over whether I should be trying to do the extras that other families seem to do with Sagebooks, flashcards or games or anything else, but really…I have skipped all of that and just the commitment for 10 minutes every day, with a tiny bit of writing practice just as a way to engage with the character beyond just visually, has kept us moving forward. No magic to it, “just” discipline for the consistency.

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      3. Grace – Bilingual Working Mom

        Do what works for you (very important!) and your kids. Honestly, I’m still searching for the best methods for my children. I constantly read about other people’s experiences to see if their approaches might work for us. Some methods are effective for a short time, while others never work for us. Consistency doesn’t mean just doing the same thing over and over; it also involves the consistent effort from parents who are willing to push this journey forward. I always applaud parents who go above and beyond to help their kids learn Chinese. It’s easier said than done. I hope we can all reach the Chinese learning goals we hope to achieve one day.

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