Yeah, “Georgia” has gone through the 4th book (#40) in the fourth box of the Magic Tree House series, with a dozen book to each box.  I estimate that the number of characters in the fourth box (book #37-48) is about twice that of the books from the first box.  She finished reading book #40 within the 15-20 minutes that I previously predicted, or 18 minutes to be exact.   By my rough estimation after counting the number of characters on a couple of typical pages, that would be about 1,000 characters a minute.  If not for the fact that she scores 98% in her reading comprehension exercises consistently despite doing it fast, I would have said that she was faking it.  Though there are online English quizzes for these books, that may put undue stress on her.  The point is to encourage reading at this point, not to discourage them.  That’s what the reading comprehension exercises are for and she’s got that down pat.

I think she really can read short novels without zhuyin these days just fine.  Yesterday, she started studying the the first chapter of third-grade second-semester textbook from Taiwan.  After looking over the text once, she read it aloud decently well (say, 70%).  She simply may not have the patience to read novels yet.  I may need to remind her that her next trip to Orlando rests on reaching this next target, LOL.

“Georgia” is always thinking of ways to get more allowance $.

To encourage her to read more, she and I reached a deal: $1 for every 3 Magic Tree house book she reads.  So, if she wants, she can potentially earn $1 in about 40-45 minutes, which is all that it takes for her to read three books.  Don’t get me wrong.  She enjoys reading those books; she just doesn’t want to read them on her own free time.  She enjoys watching TV more, though I do put a limit on that.  They are rewatching “我的少女時代“ these last two days.  It’s great to watch Chinese movies with them.  We tell a lot of inside jokes from the movies and YouTube videos.

This is what she read today.  That’s the benefit of learning zhuyin for us. (I suppose pinyin would work but I don’t know if there are many intermediate level books like these with pinyin all the way through.) New characters do not pose a limit on the types of books they can read. As long as the content is at their level and they are familiar enough with the Chinese wording vocally, they can read it.  Reading competency and fluency takes……reading!

買了三套Magic Tree House 中文版給九歲的小女兒看，效果不錯，接受度高。一套12本，買了第一，二，四套。第四套字應該有第一套的兩倍以上。小女兒現在看到第二套第一本（其實她喜歡的，ㄧ本12-15分鐘就可以看完）。推～

I bought 3 sets of Magic Tree House for “Georgia”, set 1, 2, 4 (book 1-24 and 37-48). The last set probably has twice the number of characters as the first set; and hence more expensive. She’s done with the first set and is moving onto the second set. I am glad she doesn’t mind reading them; but really, if she likes the topic, she finishes one book in 12-15 minutes. We will see how she will respond to the last set, in terms of attention span.