A Comparative Study Of Chinese Graded Children’s Readers Under Different Standards In China And The United States

With the gradual improvement of the international influence of China,the number of learners of Chinese language has increased at different ages all over the world.In the past,adult learners were mainly focused on while children’s need to learn Chinese was ignored.With the improvement of Chinese teaching system,the academic circle began to re-examine the field of Chinese teaching for children,realizing the different characteristics between children and adults in language acquisition.In order to make children learn Chinese more smoothly,it is necessary to write relevant Chinese textbooks accordingly.As an important way of language input,reading plays a significant role in language teaching,it is urgent to compile Chinese readers suitable for children.This paper takes two sets of Chinese graded children’s readers compiled by referring to different standards and programs in China and the United States as the research objects,investigates the readers from multi-aspects by exploring the differences,advantages and disadvantages between these two sets of readers so as to put forward practical suggestions for the compilation of graded children’s readers and the compilation of graded children’s readers outline.This paper selects "Smart Cat(For Kids)" written by referring to the YCT outline and Cool Panda Graded Chinese children’s readers written by referring to the American language teaching objectives as the research objects,comparing multiple dimensions of the two sets of readers,such as the reference outlines,the structures and topics,the grades of difficulty levels,and the practice and illustrations,these elements are presented by statistical tables,the difficulty range and grading standards of the two sets of readers are re-examined based on the newly issued Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education,making clear the difficulty range and grading standard of the two sets of readers,and summarize the distinctive characteristics of the two sets of readers.The study found that there are two types of outline: one is practical type and the other is growth type;the structure of Cool Panda Chinese Graded Children’s Readers is meticulous and rigorous,the topics are abundant,The difficulty level division can be seen in the traces of theoretical guidance;The difficulty of Smart Cat(Children’s Edition)is moderate,paying more attention to interpersonal communications,emotional resonances and expressions.At the same time,there are similarities between the two sets of readers,such as the topic is full of vitality,the illustrations focus on children’s interests,but also reflect the common problems,the grading standards of is vague.Based on the above conclusions and the five principles followed in the compilation of Chinese textbooks,this study reinterprets the compilation requirements of Chinese graded children’s readers,This study also puts forward some feasible suggestions on how to make the syllabus of Chinese graded children’s readers more scientific.