YOU could see the spell upon Chinese characters,The spell's origin is your wstern alphabet system,it help us to pronunciat,but it is only a tool,if a Chinese read spell seperately ,he don't understand what meaning it is .SO when Children have learned over 2000 Chinese characters,he will not need the help of spell.Chinese Characters vary from yours.Mastering 2000 characters ,you can read most of Chinese articls,including ancient ones.