Speaks Chinese but can’t read and write Chinese.

[peipeisdad]

My stepson came to England just before his sixth birthday, speaking Mandarin only. He was thrown in the deep end at school and just had to learn English. Now as he approaches 13 he is every bit the Essex boy. He still fully understands his mother tongue, sometimes even using it in England and when we holiday in China he reverts to Chinese with no real problems. However we have let him down by not seeing to it that he read and write the language.
How do we start making amends?

 

[mikelove]

One great place to start would be Skritter - it's an online interactive character learning website run by a three really nice fellows from Ohio. And their focus is specifically on reading/writing characters, rather than offering more general-purpose speaking / grammar / diction / etc lessons like ChinesePod, so it seems like exactly what you need in this case. Their system works best with a pen tablet (accessory you plug into your computer that lets you draw characters with a digital pen), but they sell them on their website and it should be pretty easy to find one at a local electronics shop too.

Our company's software is also great for this if you have / are willing to get an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad; the built-in document reader would let him tap on characters in an electronic text to instantly look up their pronunciation and meaning, letting him work with texts that are above his reading level but well within his Chinese language level and pick up characters as he goes along. And we've got our own built-in flashcard system with support for vocabulary reading / writing practice modes.

Fundamentally, though, if he has no training in Chinese reading / writing whatsoever you might also want to get him involved in some sort of course; there are certain basic principles (radicals, stroke order, character construction (pictograms versus logical aggregates versus pictophonetic compounds)) that are probably still best explained by a teacher. I'm sure there's a Chinese cultural center in your area that could direct you to one; you could also look for a private tutor, there are always university students looking to make some extra cash