Background

The Internet revolutionises learning process from individual and one-sided study to web-based and interactive. Our platform utilises the Internet and provides a resourceful and interactive learning space online. Incorporating information technology into Chinese language education, the platform strengthens the Education Bureau’s idea to implement the use of information technology to cater for individual differences.

We believe that childhood is the prime time for cultivating reading habit. Therefore, our current prioritised target is primary school students. The Graded Reading World, using the rich database from The Commercial Press (H.K.) Ltd. and technological aids in line with education principles, ignites students' learning passion and allows teachers or parents to track children's reading progress and abilities.

We value the importance of after-school reading in broadening knowledge, expanding horizon, and cultivating reading interest. The articles on the platform are divided into 6 categories: knowledge, culture and liberal studies, literature and stories, famous essays and classics, practical writing and classical Chinese. Among them, the Classical Chinese category includes the latest primary school classical Chinese reading chapters recommended by the EDB of the Hong Kong in 2021. These chapters are marked with "**" after the title of the article. Students can choose their interested topics and share opinions online. The articles are classified with levels and themes. With articles and practices of multiple difficulty levels, students from different grades can benefit from the learning experience.

In addition to reading practices, the platform also offers listening training which is in line with listening teaching at school.

Programme Introduction

1. Reading levels: There are 13 reading levels according to the 6 grades of primary school.
2. Starting level: Readers can choose any level as the starting point which, once selected, canot be changed. Details can be viewed in the following table of “Recommended Reading Level.”

   Recommended Reading Level	Grade
   1 2	Primary 1
   3 4	Primary 2
   5 6	Primary 3
   7 8	Primary 4
   9 10	Primary 5
   11 12	Primary 6
   13	Secondary 1

3. Reading Period: Each serial number card can be used for 1 year (365 days)
4. Available articles: Maximum amount of articles for each user is 365 (that is, 1 article each day).
5. Levels can be customised by (a) content difficulty, (b) vocabulary difficulty, and (c) article length. Content difficulty is determined according to students' comprehension ability, knowledge, and interest. Vocabulary difficulty is determined according to Hong Kong Chinese Lexical Lists for Primary Learning.
6. Assessment Comprehensive assessment is conducted after completing 15 articles and practices. Every 15 articles are a period.
7. Criteria of level adjustment:
   • 1 level up for 3 consecutive periods with an average score higher than 85.
   • Level unchanged for 3 consecutive periods with an average score between 50 and 85.
   • 1 level down for 3 consecutive periods with an average score lower than 50; this helps the student to build up a stronger foundation for further improvement.
8. Methods of level adjustment: A student's level can be upgraded or downgraded 2 levels at most in each school year. If a student wishes to upgrade further after 2 levels, he or she has to wait until the next school year (Personal Edition users will need to purchase another serial number card in order to continue reading other articles after passing 2 levels).
9. Catch-up reading mechanism:
   • Flexible catch-up reading schedule is available to students to meet their various needs. Since September 2015, new catch-up reading mechanism has been implemented:
   • Schedule for catch-up reading:
     Time slots for catch-up reading is available from the current Saturday to the next Friday, with a total of 7 days.
   • Methods of catch-up reading:
     • Students can do catch-up reading on any days within the 7 days.
     • There is no limit on catch-up reading, until the task is complete.
     • If the catch-up reading is not complete in the second week, the system will mark the catch-up reading as unfinished.
     • Records of unfinished catch-up reading will be reset and re-calculated when a new week starts.
   • Calculation of catch-up reading scores:
     • The score report will combine the scores of both normal reading and catch-up reading, so as to fully present the practice scores and assess a student’s overall performance.
     • In order to encourage students to follow the reading schedule, only the scores of scheduled reading count towards the ranking, while the scores of catch-up reading do not count.
10. Listening training:
    • Listening practices are scheduled once every half a month (i.e., two times a month). Each level consists of 10 practices of listening.
    • No catch-up practice is offered in listening. Students are required to complete the practices before the deadlines of each month.
    • Scores of listening practices are included in the total scores and calculation of rankings.
    • Scores of listening practices do not affect the adjustment of reading levels.