Reading Into a New China is a best-selling, innovative course designed to build advanced level reading and writing proficiency using essays on China’s rapidly changing sociocultural landscape. In the ten chapters in Volume 1, students explore complex issues like China’s population boom, the challenges of finding love, and the employment prospects of Chinese college graduates. The series’ pedagogy emphasizes reading comprehension strategies and language acquisition techniques, teaching learners to skim texts for main ideas, scan for details, and identify different types of prose. The series also explains the nuances of formal written Chinese and encourages users to implement newly learned literary forms in their writing.

Word usage, sentence patterns, and grammar activities are scaffolded for writing skills development, and communicative exercises such as discussion and presentation topics encourage speaking and writing about complex social issues in contemporary China. Visually striking, full-color magazine-style spreads enhance up-to-date content with photographs and infographics.