Chapter 278 Learning to Read

Chapter 278 Learning to Read

Tong Huaqiong glanced at Maner with approval.

Then he said to Chen Sufen and Liu Yue'e, "Not only does Man'er have to go to school, but you two also have to learn to read."

Chen Sufen and Liu Yue'e seemed to have heard something extraordinary, and the two sisters-in-law were completely confused.

They also have to learn to read.

Can literacy be learned by ordinary people?

Among all the women in the village, only my mother-in-law and sister-in-law can read.

My mother-in-law learned it from her brother when she was in the boudoir, and Gu Taohua was taught by my mother-in-law.

The other women are blind.

However, illiteracy does not affect everyone's lives. For so many years, all the women in Qinghewan were illiterate, but it did not affect their ability to have children and manage the household and the fields.

Chen Sufen and Liu Yue'e looked at each other, and saw confusion in each other's eyes.

To be honest, Chen Sufen and Liu Yue'e were quite resistant to learning to read.

Tong Huaqiong knew what the sisters-in-law were thinking by observing their eyes and expressions.

"What do you two think about learning to read?" Tong Huaqiong asked.

Liu Yue'e said, "Mother, I think it's not easy for my aunt to write. I don't think I can even hold the brush. It doesn't matter if we can't read."

Chen Sufen nodded aside.

They don't have the talent to be talented women, and they are already married with children, so why should they learn that kind of stuff?

Tong Huaqiong said: "Illiteracy has a lot of influence. For example, Taohua, many people think that it was because of me that Taohua became the second boss of Taohua Dessert. Think about it, is that true? Managing a shop is not a simple matter. For example, if Taohua is illiterate, how can she read the account book and find problems?"

"For example, when farming, why wheat turns yellow when it grows, how to eliminate ear rot in corn, you also know that I made those medicines from what I saw in space. If I couldn't read, I wouldn't know what a pile of treasures were for."

"From your sister-in-law and me, you can see the importance of literacy. If you stay at home and don't know how to read, it won't affect you at all. You can only do housework, prepare three meals a day, and raise children. But now you are in the shop, and illiteracy will affect you sooner or later. Yue'e, do you only want to be an errand boy? Don't you want to be the shopkeeper? Sufen, do you only want to bake cakes in the bakery? Don't you want to take apprentices or write down the cake recipes you have figured out?"

After hearing this, Chen Sufen and Liu Yue'e fell into deep thought.

They really hadn't thought about what the mother-in-law said.

Take Liu Yue'e for example. She thought that since Dashu was a son, her mother-in-law's family property would have to be divided among their second wife in the future, so she was not worried at all.

But it would be a lie to say that she didn't envy Gu Taohua.

Sometimes she wanted to be able to read account books, write and calculate like Gu Taohua.

Chen Sufen was the same. Sometimes she was quite envious of Gu Taohua.

She now memorizes all the pastry recipes she is thinking of. When she can't remember them, she draws lines on the wall with stones, such as how many grams of flour is needed, how many eggs are needed, and the walls of the entire bakery are covered with ghost paintings.

If you can read, you can just write it down on paper, and when you forget you can just look it up.

"Mom, what you said is right. I want to learn, but can I learn it at my age?" Chen Sufen was very unconfident.

Tong Huaqiong was satisfied with Chen Sufen's attitude.

She is more motivated than Liu Yue'e.

As long as you are willing to learn, you can learn it.

Tong Huaqiong said, "How old are you? Can you be older than me? You never thought about doing business with me before, but now you are doing well."

Chen Sufen was encouraged by her mother-in-law and gained some confidence. She said, "Then I will learn. I am stupid but I will work hard."

Seeing that Chen Sufen had expressed her determination in front of her mother-in-law, Liu Yue'e didn't want to fall behind her sisters-in-law, so she gritted her teeth and said, "My eldest sister-in-law and I think the same, so I'll learn too."

Tong Huaqiong expressed satisfaction.

Gu Taohua said, "Sisters-in-law, don't take literacy as a big deal. Literacy is just like recognizing seeds in the field. Once you learn to recognize one, you can quickly recognize the next one. The more you learn, the more you will remember. We are not like our third brother who has to study the Four Books and Five Classics to take the imperial examination. We only need to recognize the characters we can use in daily life. It's not difficult at all."

Tong Huaqiong agreed with Gu Taohua's words and said to the two daughters-in-law, "Your sister is right. You only need to learn words that can be used in daily life. You don't need to work hard or practice hard in summer or winter."

Tong Huaqiong then gave an example.

"For example, the crops in our fields, such as wheat, corn and soybeans, are easy to remember when you learn the characters for them while seeing the real objects. For example, when you are busy in the shop, you can start by learning numbers, one, two, three, four, five, to one hundred. It is simple and can be used."

Tong Huaqiong felt that the reason why Chen Sufen and Liu Yue'e were reluctant to learn to read at first was mainly because they were influenced by the environment where no women were literate. Even if there were talented women in that era, it was very far away from their lives.

Women being able to read and write was something that only girls from wealthy families had, and had nothing to do with girls from farm families.

Therefore, people imagine literacy to be difficult and unattainable.

Tong Huaqiong planned to teach students according to their aptitude, teaching them simple numbers first, building up their confidence and making them realize that literacy is a very simple thing.

In fact, it is a very simple matter. Judging from Tong Huaqiong's modern experience, if literacy were a difficult thing, the national literacy campaign would not have achieved such great results.

Her great-grandmother was in her fifties or sixties at the time, but she still learned to read in a literacy class.

Chen Sufen and Liu Yue'e were so young, had good memories and were smart, so it was impossible for them not to learn to read.

Chen Sufen thought for a while and asked Tong Huaqiong: "Mom, who will teach me and my younger siblings to read?"

Liu Yue'e said at the side: "You won't let me and my sister-in-law go to school with Man'er Yaozu, right?"

If so, they would be very embarrassed.

It makes my scalp tingle just thinking about two people of such age, two women who already have children, studying together with their children.

Tong Huaqiong said: "Of course I will teach you."

Chen Sufen and Liu Yue'e both breathed a sigh of relief.

Just don't let them go to school.

Tong Huaqiong said: "I will teach you three words a day, you must study hard. Who am I doing this for? It's for your future."

Seeing Tong Huaqiong start teaching values, the two sisters-in-law promised to study hard and almost swore an oath.

Tong Huaqiong has her own plan for the literacy of her two daughters-in-law. At the beginning, she taught them three words a day, which may not seem like a lot.

But as time goes by, little by little, you can accumulate more than a thousand Chinese characters in a year, which are enough for reading letters and keeping accounts.

We have nearly 70,000 Chinese characters, but only 3,500 are used in daily life. In other words, it took Chen Sufen and Liu Yue'e two years to be able to understand Gu Jingzhe's book.

What's more, Chinese characters have their own rules. Usually, once you learn a character, you can apply it to other cases. It is even easier to learn the rules of radicals.

What bothers Tong Huaqiong is that people in this era use brushes to write.

Tong Huaqiong, a modern calligrapher, is not good at calligraphy. Even Gu Taohua was complaining about why her mother's calligraphy was so scribbled and not as good as before.

You should know that in the past, the Spring Festival couplets for the Gu family were written by Tong Huaqiong, Gu Jingzhe and Gu Taohua.

However, for the two daughters-in-law, it doesn’t matter if their calligraphy is scribbles like hers, as long as people can understand what they write.

Her requirements are not high.