nOn September 15, 2021, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP) and Oxford University Press (OUP) jointly held an unveiling ceremony for their new co-built reading brand Little Sparks and the book launch for the Chinese-English edition of Oxford Reading for Comprehension (ORFC) published by FLTRP, with a theme of Integrating Reading into Life during Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF). Ms. Wang Fang, President of FLTRP and Mr. Ding Rui, General Manager of OUP China Branch unveiled the new brand and the new book together,delivering speeches respectively.

FLTRP and OUP enjoy a 38-year history of cooperation. Over the past years the parties brought a wide range of popular English readers to the Chinese market with abundant content and idiomatic language, such as Bookworms and Lisheng series. The birth of Little Sparks further strengthens the parties’comprehensive mutual cooperation. ORFC is the first series of English graded readers under Little Sparks, focusing on guiding children to learn reading strategies and develop reading skills, and teaching them how to read effectively.

Ms. Wang Fang pointed out that reading is an essential part of children’s learning and development, which helps to cultivate not only children’s language and cognitive competence but also their comprehensive quality. It is hoped that reading will be integrated into both of children’s school life and family life.

Mr. Ding Rui said that both verbal and written expression should be developed on the basis of an accumulation of high-quality reading content. It is wished to stimulate children’s reading interest and cultivate their good reading habit so that they could possess lifelong enthusiasm for learning, which is a key ability for future talents.