Foreign research shows that 20%–30% of preschool children are potentially dyslexic. Local studies have similar findings that 27% of kindergarten 2 children and 25% of kindergarten 3 children in Hong Kong are potentially dyslexic. To support these children, Heep Hong Society’s ‘Read and Write: A Jockey Club Learning Support Network’ Working Group initiated a three-year project of research and development, design, trials and effectiveness studies to develop suitable teaching and learning materials.The Language Learning Package for Pre-primary Children was launched in 2009. In the following year, the Society embarked on a three-year partnership with 18 kindergartens, where The Language Learning Package was incorporated into the curriculum. The effectiveness studies revealed that after receiving one year of support services, the 311 children identified as potentially dyslexic have shown substantial improvement in their listening, speaking, reading and writing abilities. Around 30% of them were no longer identified as having potential learning difficulties. The Society published The Language Learning Package for Pre-primary Children (Enhanced Edition) in May 2014, compiling the extensive clinical experience and insights of educational psychologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists and preschool teachers. The Enhanced Edition comprises a teacher’s manual, and two learning activities handbooks (each accompanied by a resource CD-ROM) tailor-made for kindergarten 2 (K2) and kindergarten 3 (K3) students. The contents of the handbooks are divided into several learning categories, including listening, speaking, reading and writing. A total of 144 learning activities are included. The Enhanced Edition will help early childhood educators use the teaching materials more effectively and, therefore, make learning more enjoyable for young children.   The publication was sponsored by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust.

This app is developed by Heep Hong Society’s ‘Read and Write: A Jockey Club Learning Support Network’ Project Team (which comprises educational psychologist, speech therapist, occupational therapist, early childhood education consultant and social worker) for K2 to junior primary school children. The children can strengthen their language foundation through playing the engaging games and develop their listening, speaking, reading and writing competences. The game takes place on three islands on 11 themed lands and includes over 600 activities. The children will become the trooper and venture into different themed lands, taking on listening, speaking, reading and writing challenges waged by the animals. The app is also equipped with ‘expert advice’, ‘story station’ and demonstration videos such as ‘stroke order exercise’ to teach children language knowledge and learning tips. This easy-to-use app works best together with The Language Learning Package for Pre-primary Children and The Guide to Language Development of Pre-primary Children for Parents. The effectiveness study showed that well-designed, interesting games can reinforce children’s language foundation, improve their learning motivation and enhance their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. It is most effective for children with emerging difficulties in reading and writing. This app runs on mobile phones and tablets. It is available in Android and iOS versions for free. Download on Google Play Store and Apple App Store by searching the keyword ‘Heep Hong Society’. (The app is available in Chinese only)

Grasping the characteristics of objects, the basic structure of sentences, and the logical relationship of the plot is crucial for children who are about to enter the school-based reading and writing stage. Children aged 3 to 6 are in the golden period of learning. Appropriate language comprehension training methods not only allow children to experience the joy of reading early, but also promote the development of their communication skills. The speech therapist team of Heep Hong Society takes language comprehension as the topic, provides training strategies in the three aspects, namely "memory", "sentence comprehension" and "story comprehension", and designs fun activities of different levels to let parents consolidate their children's language comprehension skills, but also spend quality time together. (For an overview of the catalogue, please refer to the Chinese version.) Buy now

Vocabulary is essential in developing listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Generally speaking, a complete language system could be developed in the course of school learning and daily interactions. Nevertheless, if at the age of four, children exhibit the following signs of weakness in vocabulary learning: slow in picking up vocabulary; having limited vocabulary; over-generalization of vocabulary meaning; weak organization power of lexicon, failure of connecting lexicon in a systematic and logical manner; inefficient retrieval of lexicon; and weak in acquiring abstract expressions, parents might have to go to extra lengths to help them boost their vocabulary acquisition abilities. With this in view, Fun with Vocabulary Learning (for children aged 3-5) and Fun with Vocabulary Learning (for children aged 5-7) were published by the Speech Therapist Team of Heep Hong Society to help children strengthen their memory, knowledge, network and retrieval of lexicon through intriguing and progressive classification, odd-man out, convergent naming and divergent naming exercises. The book also throws light on developing creative home training to facilitate children’s language development. The Vocabulary Learning Series is sponsored by Po & Helen Chung Foundation. Buy Now