PARENT GUIDE
Parent guides: teaching Chinese characters at home | Hanzi Sprout
Practical writing for the parent at home: what is actually happening when a child speaks Chinese but does not read it, what helps, and what quietly makes it harder.
The guides
- My child speaks Chinese but cannot read it — what actually helpsA heritage child who talks to you in Mandarin but does not read the characters is the usual case, not a failure. What is happening, and the small things that help at home.
- How to teach Chinese characters to a child who already speaks MandarinA practical way to introduce written Chinese at home: start from the words your child already says, give each character one clear encounter, and meet it again in the real world.
- Chinese characters without stroke drills: recognition first, writing laterCopying strokes and recognising characters are two different skills. Why doing them in this order helps a young child, and what to do instead when they are not ready to write.
- Chinese reading for bilingual kids: from speaking to reading, step by stepThe path a bilingual child usually takes from speaking Chinese to reading it, what each step needs, and why comparing them with a monolingual child in China measures the wrong thing.
Try the free characters
None of these guides promise a result, because nobody can honestly promise one. They describe what tends to help. Hanzi Sprout itself covers one small step — recognising a character that matches a word your child already says.