Sun Bei Photo: Courtesy of Children's Fun Publishing

Chinese publishing house Children's Fun Publishing announced on Saturday that it has launched the 1st Chinese Original Reading Level for Children program to promote the development of reading among children.

Sun Bei, chief editor of the project, talked about how she dealt with the task at a press conference held on Saturday. 

"Producing this set of graded reading materials was a great challenge to our research and development staff. First of all, there were no such original graded reading materials for children in China, so we had nothing to refer to when editing it. Also, we were not sure if Chinese parents would accept it," Sun said.

Two of the sets of reading materials, which include 20 books, have been published and other levels for higher age groups are being developed.

The books select words and characters with a high frequency of use in Chinese children's reading, and include many stories about history and science to adapt to children's reading habits and improve their reading skills. 

The illustrations in the books are also an important aspect of the materials. The production team invited several painters to complete the illustrations so that each picture could help children understand the content of the stories.

When testing the materials among children and parents, most of the reactions were positive. 

The test report said that many parents thought this was a group of books that will be a great help to the development of their children's independent reading habits.