About Us

Hello!  We are a group of moms (and dads) who are fluent in at least two languages.  For many of us, Mandarin is our native tongue, so we want to pass our legacy and heritage to our kids, even if we no longer live in a country where Mandarin is the primary-spoken language.

Some of us signed our kids up for Chinese school, only to find them drudging through dreadfully tedious exercises while moaning and complaining about how “boring” Chinese is.  Some of us tried teaching the kids at home — with materials we brought from our home countries or using Chinese textbooks written for non-native speakers.  Even we, the parents, found the lessons to be outdated, dull, too difficult and vague.

And here is the worst part: even if we somehow jammed some Chinese into our kids’ brains, they had no place to practice reading Mandarin.  If we give our kids a random storybook, chances are they won’t know enough of the characters to understand the plot (since the books aren’t leveled). They end up losing confidence and interest in Chinese.  Once they can read stories in English and other languages, it becomes even harder to persuade them to learn Chinese.

This is why we created Little Chinese Readers—a comprehensive system that integrates leveled lessons/resources with companion storybooks for each level, so that kids can build up Chinese vocabulary step by step, while developing a good reading habit to keep up with the language through adulthood.