The difficulty and challenge in Chinese children’s character reading: An analysis based on Chinese curriculum standards and Chinese character reading research

Abstract

Chinese character reading is the focus of Chinese teaching in the lower grades of primary school, and it is also a difficult point and challenging problem in the transition from kindergartens (K3) to primary school. To understand the learning slope of children's Chinese character reading in this transition, this study assessed the requirements of Chinese curriculum standards for compulsory education over the years based on the number of Chinese characters being learned by children in the lower grades of primary school. The results showed that the requirement of 1600 Chinese characters was, is, and will be the “should level” required at this stage of education. Comparing it with the levels achieved by children in kindergartens and primary schools in the empirical research from 2005 to 2021, it was found that the slope of children's Chinese character reading was not in the transition between K3 and Grade 1 but rather between Grades 1 and 2. The study proposed that to alleviate the slope in this transition, we should pay more attention to Chinese character teaching in Grade 2, improve the abilities of Grade 2 students’ Chinese character reading, and help them reach the requirements of the curriculum standards, in order to prevent the pressure of Chinese character reading from Grade 2 flooding back into Grade 1, causing parents to worry about their children's Chinese character reading before entering primary school.