Higher Chinese in Primary School: What It Adds, How the PSLE Grades It

Higher Chinese (高级华文) is the primary Chinese course for children whose Chinese is strong. In MOE's lists it reads the same characters as Standard Chinese from P1 to P4 and writes more of them; from P5 it has lessons of its own. By the end of P6, a Higher Chinese child has learnt to write 1,425 characters, against 1,076 in Standard Chinese.

At the PSLE it's graded Distinction, Merit or Pass, outside the four subjects that make up the PSLE Score. Where it counts is posting to SAP schools and taking Higher Chinese in secondary school. The numbers per level, and what the exam asks, are below.

The school has offered Higher Chinese, or a teacher thinks your child could manage it. The question at home is a different one: if you don't speak Chinese, can you keep up with more characters every week?

You're not the only family asking. In the 2020 Census, about 3 in 4 Chinese children aged 5 to 14 in Singapore spoke English most often at home. For most of them, Chinese is a school subject closer to a foreign language, and Higher Chinese is more of it.

I'm Joshua. We speak English at home, and I built the deck below for my own daughter. Here is what Higher Chinese adds at each level, from MOE's own lists, and how the PSLE treats it, so you can decide with the numbers in front of you.

Try the deck free

Pick your child's level and I'll email you lessons 1 to 3 of it as an Anki deck. The full level is SGD 199, all six levels SGD 599, with a 60-day money-back guarantee. More about the deck

What's in the sample

Lessons 1 to 3 of your child's level, Standard Chinese, as an Anki deck: 2024 syllabus for P1 to P3, old syllabus for P4 to P6.
Each full level has Standard and Higher Chinese. P1 to P3 come in both the old and the 2024 syllabus.
Open it in Anki on your phone, tablet or computer. Anki is free on Android, Mac and Windows.

What Higher Chinese adds, level by level

MOE's 生字表 lists the new characters of every lesson: to read (识读字) and to write (识写字). Added up per level, Standard against Higher:

2024 syllabus (欢乐伙伴2.0, P1 to P3 so far)

Level	To read	To write	To read, Higher	To write, Higher
P1	364	167	364	202
P2	382	183	382	233
P3	285	219	285	269

Old syllabus (欢乐伙伴, P1 to P6)

Level	To read	To write	To read, Higher	To write, Higher
P1	306	152	306	187
P2	324	216	324	243
P3	282	207	282	270
P4	307	161	307	260
P5	267	202	346	286
P6	169	138	250	179

Each level's lessons and characters are on its own page: P1 · P2 · P3 · P4 · P5 · P6.

Up to P4 the difference is writing: the same characters to read, more of them to write. From P5 Higher Chinese reads more too, from its own book. It also gets more class time: 7 hours a week in P1 and P2 against 6 for Standard Chinese, and in P1 and P2 it's offered only in selected schools.

So the extra work is mostly writing, and it starts small. In P1 it's a few dozen more characters to write; the gap is widest in P4, and in P5 Higher Chinese moves to its own book. Class time is longer too: 7 hours a week in P1 and P2 against 6 for Standard Chinese, in the selected schools that offer it that early.

How the PSLE grades Higher Chinese

Distinction, Merit or Pass. The PSLE Score is the sum of the Achievement Levels of four subjects, and Standard Chinese is one of them. Higher Chinese is graded on its own.
SAP schools. With a PSLE Score of 14 or better, a Distinction, Merit or Pass in Higher Chinese gives a posting advantage to SAP schools. When children with the same PSLE Score apply to the same SAP school, the better Higher Chinese grade gets the place first, before the usual tie-breakers.
Higher Chinese in secondary school. It's open to children with AL1 or AL2 in PSLE Chinese, or a Distinction or Merit in Higher Chinese.
The paper. The PSLE Higher Chinese exam has no oral. It's two papers: a composition (one narrative of at least 200 characters, 40 marks) and language use and comprehension (60 marks), which includes spotting wrongly written characters and misused words and correcting them.

That last part is why the writing lists matter: a character your child half-remembers is a character they can't correct in the paper.

One parent's review of the deck: "The cards have been beneficial and helps him to remember his words beyond just the usual 听写. He also got into Higher Chinese as well!"

Keeping up at home when you don't speak Chinese

Higher Chinese is more characters, and the way to keep them is the same as for Standard: short, daily review, timed so each word comes back just before it would be forgotten. In 1885 Hermann Ebbinghaus found that 38 repetitions spread over three days worked as well as 68 crammed into one day.

Every word in the MOE syllabus, P1 to P6, for Standard and Higher Chinese, lesson by lesson, clearly labelled so you can focus on your child's track.
Characters your child only needs to read (识读字) get a Recognition card and a Sentence card. Characters they need to write (识写字) also get a Writing card, one character at a time, with stroke order.
Natural Mandarin audio, pinyin and English on every card, so you can follow along even if you don't read Chinese, and a picture on every example sentence.
10-15 minutes a day. Within 4 months, my daughter could read and recognise every P1 word.
The free sample is lessons 1 to 3 of your child's level, Standard Chinese. A full level, Standard and Higher, is SGD 199 (all six SGD 599), with a 60-day money-back guarantee.

Sources

The PSLE Score, Higher Chinese grades, SAP school posting and Higher Chinese in secondary school: MOE, How will the current PSLE scoring system benefit your child?
The PSLE Higher Chinese papers: SEAB, PSLE Higher Chinese Language (0015), format examined in 2026 (PDF, from SEAB's PSLE formats page).
Hours a week, and P1 and P2 Higher Chinese in selected schools only: MOE, 小学华文课程标准2024 (Primary Chinese Language syllabus 2024, PDF), chapter 3, 课程架构 and 课时安排.
The characters per level: MOE's 生字表 (2024, 2024 Higher, old, old Higher).

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Higher Chinese in primary school: what it adds