Growing up, I was the only Chinese person in my elementary class, and I didn’t have an opportunity to learn Chinese until college. This left me feeling cut off from my heritage and family. As a mother, I never want my child or any child to experience the same thing.
I’ve spent countless hours trying to figure out how to get my daughter to be fluent in Chinese. For parents going on the same journey, here are Chinese resources that my family used to create a Chinese learning environment in our household.
Chameleon Reader: his is a reader pen that allows users to create personalized audiobooks by placing a sticker on a page and using the pen to record audio. What’s really cool is that each sticker can hold up to four different recordings, which makes it easy to create multilingual books!
Dim Sum Warriors: This is an online membership subscription that teaches English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese through webcomics, comic doodle videos, and vocabulary games and quizzes. I love the silly art and creativity. At SGD 11 per month or SGD 89 per year (last checked in 2026), it’s a great value and an excellent Chinese learning resource.
Karaoke and Quiz: This is an interactive karaoke and quiz game that teaches kids how to sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” in Chinese. I haven’t quite figured out how to sync recorded audio with the website yet, so the audio is currently computer-generated. Hopefully, I can improve this tool in the future.
LA Dual Immersion: These are K-12 school programs that teach at least 50% of the school curriculum using another language so students are “immersed” in that language. The goal is for students to be fully bilingual by the end of elementary school. This section lays out my experiences with the dual immersion programs in the Los Angeles area, along with general guidance/advice when navigating dual immersion schools.
Le Le Reading Pen Books: This set includes 300 mini Chinese books (each about 7–8 pages long) that teach around 1,000 everyday Chinese characters. I love how the reading pen allows non-native parents to “read” along with their child and how the books solely focus on Chinese characters by excluding Pinyin and Zhuyin.
Media Resources: I try not to give my child a lot of screen time. But when I’m too tired to do anything else, these are some Mandarin Chinese children’s shows that I don’t feel too guilty letting my child watch.