The Kids Read project started in 2011, and HSBC helped the British Council to move it to China in 2016. Beijing is the first city to offer the program, according to Wang Ying, director of corporate sustainability at HSBC.

“Good reading habits established early will improve later performance in a range of skills, as well as develop language and critical thinking,” said Fraser Bewick, senior consultant trainer at the British Council, the UK’s official English and cultural organization.

“This can be the foundation of students building reading habits in English, and better understanding English is fun,” Bewick added.

Schools in Shanghai will also get involved in this project starting in 2018. The British Council may also expand the program to Guangzhou next year, the consultant said.

Besides 150 English-language storybooks, each school will also get high-quality teacher training workshops, student-accessible resources and inter-school competitions.

“It’s like a pyramid of glasses. If you pour water into the top glass, it goes to the others,” Bewick said when explaining the teacher training workshops. “The teachers will pass the knowledge to other teachers. As for this school, we’ll have nine teachers and 1000 students eventually participating in this project.”