Reading is also an integral part of a child’s development and will certainly boost career options. Our reporter Stanley Lee joins a reading workshop in Beijing to see out how kindergartens here are encouraging children to become readers for life.
Eager children, with their parents in tow, are desperate to delve into a sea of books. Here at the Children’s Reading Experience Wonderland in Beijing, activities such as dancing and acting out plays based on books, are designed to inspire interest in these stories.
Peng Zuonan, deputy manager of Children’s Reading Experience Wonderland, said, "We mainly want to help children between 3-13 years old, this is the ideal time to cultivate a good reading habit. Experience is where we begin; we invigorate their interests through games and activities."
Recent studies show that children up to the age of 13 read on average five extracurricular books in 2012, that’s 1.5 books fewer than in 2011.
That’s why Reading Experience Wonderland, the largest organisation of its kind in China, is encouraging kids to pick up a book and get reading. It’s also crucially important that parents are there to guide them- luckily almost 90% of parents are doing just that.
But what happens when parents aren’t around?
That’s where the kindergartens come in. The Jingcheng kindergarten in Beijing is considered a model kindergarten for young readers.
Comfortable classrooms surrounded by books-- it’s hard not to want to pick one up and start exploring.
One major challenge for children while reading is remaining focused. Anyone with experience of children will know how hard it can be to ensure they stay on task. Some have proposed introducing e-reading to kids as a remedy to this. Others disagree.
Peng Zuonan said, "Studies have shown that the brain-waves of children will descend into dormancy after more than 30 minutes of reading from electronic devices. This could stunt their development in their ability to focus when not using electronic devices."
So it seems the best way to help a child along on a lifetime of reading is still good old paper backs.