December 2004, Arizona.
Reading to “grandparents”.
If there is one activity that Yiran can always do, happily, confidently and independently, it is, without a single doubt, reading. Yiran is a ferocious reader. She can read for a whole hour all by herself and still go on until forced to stop. She wrote in her Homework Notebook, “I like to read books that tell sweet stories because they give me a warm feeling.” Her teachers, Principal, friends’ parents all complimented what an amazing reader Yiran is!
She has been reading 200-plus-page books such as Gulliver’s Travels, King Arthur, Moby Dick, The House of the Seven Gables, Mary Poppins, and The Secret Garden (all adapted versions). And she truly absorbs the stories that she reads. Charlotte’s Web made her cry because Charlotte had to die after she saved Wilbur. After reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Yiran was silent for a very long time. Finally, she whispered to mommy, “He laid down with her and died because he loves her”. Before she could complete her sentence, she broke down in tears.
Equally remarkable is her ability to read in Chinese. She is reading Chinese at the same level as Luran, who’s 2+ years her senior, with a good reading knowledge of about 1,000 characters. On average, we spend about 10 minutes reading Chinese each day. Our readings cover short stories, children’s poems, humor, fables and legends, and chengyu gushi (the legendary or historical events that gave rise to the four-character idioms in Chinese). Yiran not only memorizes the characters with stunning precision but also the contents of the readings very well. One day, out of her own will, she read the entire Chinese book “congming de yixiu”, a story about a smart young monk, independently.
Like Luran, Yiran is also a selective reader, however. While Luran literally buries himself in science books, her great capacity and passion are reserved for fictions alone. We need to sit with her to learn why we dig up the earth before we plant seeds, what kind of clouds will bring us rain, and to locate on the globe where Howland Island is (where Amelia Earhart disappeared).
