Wu Jingxun, 46, is from Foshan, Guangdong Province. About 15 years ago, when he came to volunteer at a village primary school in Sichuan Province for the first time, he found the kids there didn't have enough books to read. He also found that there weren't any books at the students' homes.
After that, Wu and his friends at Friends Camp, a volunteer organization (组织), bought many books for the primary school.
One year later, in 2007, when they visited the school again, they found that children in the village did not know how to read. Even though you put great books in front of them, they just looked through the picture books. They didn't learn from the books. This made Wu and his friends think how to teach children to read.
In some good primary schools, grade-three students can finish reading 15 books a year and, sometimes even more. But, in poor villages, grade-six students only know about 1,800 Chinese characters(汉字).
Now Wu focuses on(专注) picture books and science as he volunteers to teach children how to read. "If they can take up reading as a good habit, they can benefit (受益) more. They can read in their free time but not just play games or use Douyin on their phones," Wu said.
