In this study a database of separation of graded characters and a database of basic
components of graded characters were
created based on the separation of all the 2,905 entries in the HSK Graded Character List into
components. In doing so, we took reference of the principles for separating characters into components given in the forthcoming Norms for Components of Frequently Used Characters in Contemporary Chinese in Elementary Teaching. According to our statistics, there are 515 basic components in the 2,905 entries among which 285 are independent characters by themselves. Grade A characters in the 4 grades show that: 1) 75% of components occur in Grade A characters with strong character-
forming ability; 2) 53% of single character-forming components and 44% of compound character-forming components are Grade A characters; 3) 40% of the Grade A characters can directly function as components to form new characters; 4) nearly 95% of the strong character-forming components occur in Grade A characters; and 5) all the first level character structures occur in Grade A characters. We therefore suggest that the teaching of character components is feasible and efficient, but the most effective way of teaching is to incorporate the teaching of components into that of basic characters that can serve as the first step to teach components.