AFAIK there are many games available there, both for computers, for standalone devices and maybe even for cellphones, that purport to help kids to learn the characters. So my question is, what is the general attitude towards such games among the adults and also, separately, among the children? Also, as a subset of the adults, do the school teachers who are involved in the teaching of characters professionally have a well known opinion?
I have to note that just because a good is widely available and has considerable sales it does not necessarily mean that it is something generally respected - e.g. witness the sales via late night TV commercials to people who don’t know better. Then again, even if something is not respected (maybe due to a prejudice) it may still be useful, but the very fact of disrespect would be interesting in itself.
Likewise, children do not necessarily agree with adults as to the value or lack thereof of a particular toy or educational technique. They might be right in some cases and wrong in others, but one way or the other their opinion would naturally be of interest to somebody evaluating the marketplace.
Someone will be along later with better advice, but in my experience people in south west China seem pretty neutral towards them. Books and flashcards still seem like the preferred method and most books stores have huge sections dedicated to Hanzi learning aids. I have seen kids messing around with electronic learning aids, but haven’t really seen anyone use it as their primary method. Then again, I am in a relatively rural area and so there is not as much technology as there is other places.
One thing that probably affects things in China is that often the grandparents take on the role of primary caretaker and do a lot of the early education. These grandparents are probably more comfortable with books and flashcards.
1000 characters in 1st grade? In Japan it’s less than 100 in first grade and a total of just 1700 spread out over 7 years. So how many characters total do they teach in Chinese primary school and how many years does it take?