© 2014 Centre for Sign Linguistics and Deaf Studies
Children in Hong Kong with Cantonese as their mother tongue encounter difficulties when they begin to learn the vocabulary and grammar of written Chinese. It is even more difficult for deaf or hard-of-hearing children because they fail initially to acquire a full system of knowledge of Cantonese at an early age. Understanding the world and building their Chinese through reading is a real challenge for them. The Chinese Readers Series is developed to support the literacy development of deaf and hearing children. The series consists of 50 story books, each of which focuses on a particular Chinese grammatical structure. They are divided into 5 series according to their topics and are marked with a different colour: pink (series 1), red (series 2), orange (series 3), yellow (series 4) and green (series 5). Children are able to acquire basic Chinese grammar concepts in the reading process via basic vocabulary, simple sentences and interesting stories, which will improve their reading skills. To enhance learning outcome, we also provide an online sign language-assisted reading system which contains Hong Kong Sign Language video clips explaining 254 difficult items as well as 50 sets of free downloadable worksheets for each story. Through free access to these language games, children can practice the various structures introduced in the story books.