我爱读报 iRead News Junior (Set of 4)

Reading newspapers is a great way for our children to learn about real-world stories, stay grounded in what's happening and sharpen their language skills.

This series brings real Singapore-style news from Lianhe Zaobao 《联合早报》, Lianhe Wanbao 《联合晚报》and Shin Ming Daily News《新明日报》in a format that is accessible and relatable for primary‑school children!

For busy parents, this a rare win - a Singapore‑based resource that builds listening, reading, speaking, and writing without feeling like a drill‑style workbook or assessment book.

It's hard to get my kids to read the newspapers in Chinese, mostly because the terms used can be difficult. Tripping up while reading every sentence leads to frustration. I don't blame the kids - I struggle with some words myself, especially the names of organizations, government agencies and government official titles!

What if we had a collection of simple and child-friendly news articles, that are already annotated, ready with vocab lists, hanyu pinyin and English translation, along with conversations questions for oral practice?

Wouldn't it be much more inviting and less frustrating?

I had a hunch that this would be a great resource and get my kids of ages 6, 11 and 13 years old to engage with local news. I have been reading this series with them over the past few months, and it doesn't disappoint!

Each《我爱读报》book contains 45 articles that are

• carefully curated
• short
• kid-friendly
• relatable
• based on local happenings

across six big themes:

• 个人／家庭 Personal / Family
• 学校 School
• 社区 Community
• 国家 Nation
• 世界 World
• 知识点 Knowledge / general knowledge

Each article is accompanied by:

• Key vocabulary and phrases 重点词语/短语 which are highlighted in yellow, with pinyin and English translation provided too! This is just awesome and so convenient for quick home learning sessions. No need to pull out the dictionary, google translate or Pleco app! The more difficult words are usually already identified and the difficult work done for us 💛
• List of technical terms and proper nouns 专有名词 that we don't usually use in conversational mandarin, underlined in the passage with English translation.
  Examples include 新加坡武装部队 Singapore Armed Forces, 网民 netizens, 手机应用程序 handphone app, 糖尿病 diabetes, 印度尼西亚 Indonesia, 兀兰地铁站 Woodlands MRT Station, 特殊需求者 special needs people and more! 
  The difficult words may be off-putting at first, but it gets easier and we get more familiar with more exposure (: 
• Conversation questions 想想说说 which make for interesting chats. These thinking questions have surprised me. They're not just exam-style prompts, but real invitations to reflect and share. This is the kind of learning that I want to encourage at home! I love that these questions stealthily build listening comprehension skills (when they listen to me read aloud, or if they listen to the QR audio), reading comprehension skills (if they read the text on their own), critical thinking, oral skills and writing skills (when they think and reflect, then come up with a logical answer and express it complete sentences!)
• QR codes to listen to recorded narration of the article, vocabulary, and conversation questions. We don't use this feature much, as my kids prefer me to read with them, allowing us to stop at any moment to translate or explain a new word, or even to talk about something similar we recently encountered. I imagine this feature can be helpful when kids are using this resource independently!

This series is especially helpful if:

• Your child is in P1–P6 and you’re trying to build everyday Chinese exposure through real‑world texts, not only stories or assessment books
• You want a bridge between school Chinese and home life. Something that feels more “grown‑up” than picture books, but still doable on a busy day
• You’d like a self‑paced reading routine that your child can handle with or without heavy parent help

Sharing some ways we've weaved this into our home life:

• On shorter school days, weekends or during holidays, we may read a few articles together.
• It can be a low-commitment quick 5min read, or 30 min deep dive if it brings us down a rabbit hole of curiosities and related youtube videos
• Sometimes, my 11- or 13-year-old reads silently and then shares a verbal summary, while I lightly check for accuracy
• Other times, they read aloud, pausing at unfamiliar words to refer to the vocabulary list or discuss as needed
• If a full article feels like too much that day, we take turns reading paragraphs, or I read to them
• They usually choose topics that interest them - my youngest gravitates towards articles about animals!
• Questions often come up, which we explore together, practising our spoken Mandarin along the way 
• If not, we use the suggested questions to check understanding, practise sentence construction 造句 or reflect on the topic. It's interesting to hear how kids perceive and think about various things. I really enjoy these 1-on-1 times with them!
• I sometimes read the news article on my own as an adult, to learn something new or to practise thinking in mandarin (:

Hope our sharing gives you some ideas to incorporate Chinese news-reading into your family too!

Recommended for Ages: 5-12
Format: Softcover
Language: Simplified Chinese