Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T23:15:29.555Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Character reading and word reading in Chinese: Unique correlates for Chinese kindergarteners

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2015

YING WANG  and
CATHERINE MCBRIDE
YING WANG
Affiliation:
Chinese University of Hong Kong
CATHERINE MCBRIDE*
Affiliation:
Chinese University of Hong Kong
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Catherine McBride, Department of Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We considered the extent to which learning to read Chinese characters and Chinese words (operationally defined as composed of two or more characters) are different in the present study. Study 1 compared reading of the same characters in isolation and those in the context of known words for 63 Chinese third-year kindergarteners. Results showed that children performed significantly better on reading the same characters when embedded within words than when alone. Study 2 further examined the correlates of single-character reading and two-character word reading for 142 Chinese third-year kindergarteners. Despite a high correlation between character reading and word reading, unique correlates emerged. Orthographic awareness, rapid automatized naming, and Pinyin letter-name knowledge independently explained variance in both character and word reading; however, orthographic awareness explained unique variance in character reading even after statistically controlling for word reading. Whereas orthographic and Pinyin knowledge may be more strongly associated with character recognition, other skills may be more important for learning to read words. Character and word reading may constitute slightly different processes, with somewhat different educational implications for each.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , March 2016 , pp. 371 - 386
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, R. C., Ku, Y. M., Li, W., Chen, X., & Shu, H. (2013). Learning to see the patterns in Chinese characters. Scientific Studies of Reading, 17, 41–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlisle, J. F. (1995). Morphological awareness and early reading achievement. In Feldman, L. B. (Ed.), Morphological aspects of language processing (pp. 189–209). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Caravolas, M., Lervåg, A., Defior, S., SeidlováMálková, G., & Hulme, C. (2013). Different patterns, but equivalent predictors, of growth in reading in consistent and inconsistent orthographies. Psychological Science, 24, 1398–1407.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chen, X., Hao, M., Geva, E., Zhu, J., & Shu, H. (2008). The role of compound awareness in Chinese children's vocabulary acquisition and character reading. Reading and Writing, 21, 559–586.Google Scholar
Ho, C. S.-H., & Bryant, P. (1999). Different visual skills are important in learning to read English and Chinese. Educational and Child Psychology, 16, 4–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ho, C. S.-H., Yau, P. W.-Y., & Au, A. (2003). Development of orthographic knowledge and its relationship with reading and spelling among Chinese kindergarten and primary school children. In McBride-Chang, C. & Chen, H.-C. (Eds.), Reading development in Chinese children (pp. 51–71). London: Praeger.Google Scholar
Huang, H. S., & Hanley, R. J. (1995). Phonological awareness and visual skills in learning to read Chinese and English. Cognition, 54, 73–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Institute of Language Teaching and Research [of China]. (1986). A frequency dictionary of modern Chinese. Beijing: Beijing Language Institute Press.Google Scholar
Kang, J. S. (1993). Analysis of semantics of semantic–phonetic compound characters in modern Chinese [in Chinese]. In Chen, Y. (Ed.), Information analysis of usage of characters in modern Chinese (pp. 68–83). Shanghai: Shanghai Education Publisher.Google Scholar
Ku, Y. M., & Anderson, R. C. (2003). Development of morphological awareness in Chinese and English. Reading and Writing, 16, 399–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lei, L., Pan, J., Liu, H., McBride-Chang, C., Li, H., Zhang, Y., et al. (2011). Developmental trajectories of reading development and impairment from ages 3 to 8 years in Chinese children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 52, 212–220.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Li, H., Peng, H., & Shu, H. (2006). A study on the emergence and development of Chinese orthographic awareness in preschool and school children [in Chinese]. Psychological Development and Education, 18, 35–38.Google Scholar
Li, H., Shu, H, McBride-Chang, C., Liu, H., & Peng, H. (2012). Chinese children's character recognition: Visuo-orthographic, phonological processing and morphological skills. Journal of Research in Reading, 35, 287–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, J., Fu, X. L., & Lin, Z. X. (2000). Study on the development of Chinese orthographic regularity in school children [in Chinese]. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 32, 121–126.Google Scholar
Li, T., & McBride-Chang, C. (2013). How character reading can be different from word reading in Chinese and why it matters for Chinese reading development. In Chen, X., Wang, Q., & Luo, Y. C. (Eds.), Reading development and difficulties in monolingual and bilingual Chinese children. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Li, T., McBride-Chang, C., Wong, A. M.-Y., & Shu, H. (2012). Longitudinal predictors of spelling and reading comprehension in Chinese as an L1 and English as an L2 in Hong Kong Chinese children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104, 286–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, W., Anderson, R. C., Nagy, W., & Zhang, H. (2002). Facets of metalinguistic awareness that contribute to Chinese literacy. In Li, W., Gaffney, J. S., & Packard, J. L. (Eds.), Chinese children's reading acquisition: Theoretical and pedagogical issues (pp. 87–106). Boston: Kluwer Academic.Google Scholar
Liao, C. H., Georgiou, G., & Parrila, R. (2008). Rapid naming speed and Chinese character recognition. Reading and Writing, 21, 231–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, D., McBride-Chang, C., Shu, H., Zhang, Y., Li, H., Zhang, J., et al. (2010). Small wins big: Analytic Pinyin skills promote Chinese word reading. Psychological Science, 21, 1117–1122.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liu, P. D., Chung, K. K. H., McBride-Chang, C., & Tong, X. (2010). Holistic versus analytic processing: Evidence for a different approach to processing of Chinese at the word and character levels in Chinese children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 107, 466–478.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McBride-Chang, C., & Ho, C. S.-H. (2005). Predictors of beginning reading in Chinese and English: A two-year longitudinal study of Chinese kindergartners. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9, 117–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McBride-Chang, C., Liu, P. D., Wong, T., Wong, A., & Shu, H. (2011). Specific reading difficulties in Chinese, English, or both: Longitudinal markers of phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and RAN in Hong Kong Chinese children. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 45, 503–514.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McBride-Chang, C., Shu, H., Ng, J., Meng, X., & Penney, T. (2007). Morphological structure awareness, vocabulary, and reading. In Wagner, R. K., Muse, A. E., & Tannenbaum, K. R. (Eds.), Vocabulary acquisition: Implications for reading comprehension (pp. 104–122). London: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
McBride-Chang, C., Shu, H., Zhou, A., Wat, C. P., & Wagner, R. K. (2003). Morphological awareness uniquely predicts young children's Chinese character recognition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 743–751.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pan, J., McBride-Chang, C., Shu, H., Liu, H., Zhang, Y., & Li, H. (2011). What is in the naming? A 5-year longitudinal study of early rapid naming and phonological sensitivity in relation to subsequent reading skills in both native Chinese and English as a second language. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103, 897–908.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raven, J. C., Court, J. H., & Raven, J. (1996). Standard Progressive Matrices. Oxford: Oxford Psychologists Press.Google Scholar
Shu, H., & Anderson, R. C. (1998). Learning to read Chinese: The development of metalinguistic awareness. In Wang, J., Inhoff, A. W., & Chen, H.-C. (Eds.), Reading Chinese script: A cognitive analysis (pp. 1–19). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Shu, H., Chen, X., Anderson, R. C., Wu, N., & Xuan, Y. (2003). Properties of school Chinese: Implications for learning to read. Child Development, 74, 27–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shu, H., Peng, H., & McBride-Chang, C. (2008). Phonological awareness in young Chinese children. Developmental Science, 11, 171–181.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shu, H., McBride-Chang, C., Wu, H., & Liu, H. (2006). Understanding Chinese developmental dyslexia: Morphological awareness as a core cognitive construct. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 122–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siok, W. T., & Fletcher, P. (2001). The role of phonological awareness and visual–orthographic skills in Chinese reading acquisition. Developmental Psychology, 37, 886–899.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sun, H. L., Sun, D. J., Huang, J. P., Li, D. J., & Xing, H. B. (1996). The description on the corpus system of modern Chinese studies. In Luo, Z. S. & Yuan, S. L. (Eds.), Studies of Chinese and Chinese character in the computer era. Beijing: Tsinghua University Publisher.Google Scholar
Tangel, D. M., & Blachman, B. A. (1992). Effect of phoneme awareness instruction on kindergarten children's invented spellings. Journal of Reading Behavior, 24, 233–258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thorndike, R. L., Hagen, E. P., & Sattler, J. M. (1986). Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scale (4th ed.). Chicago: Riverside.Google Scholar
Tong, X., McBride-Chang, C., Shu, H., & Wong, A. M.-Y. (2009). Morphological awareness, orthographic knowledge, and spelling errors: Keys to understanding early Chinese literacy acquisition. Scientific Studies of Reading, 13, 426–452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, M., Cheng, C. X., & Chen, S.-W. (2006). Contribution of morphological awareness to Chinese–English biliteracy acquisition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 542–553.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Y., & McBride-Chang, C. (2013). Correlates of Chinese kindergartners’ word reading and writing: The unique role of copying skills. Reading and Writing. Advance online publication. doi:10.1007-s11145-013-9486-8Google Scholar
Zhou, X.-L., & Marslen-Wilson, W. (1995). Morphological structure in the Chinese mental lexicon. Language and Cognitive Processes, 10, 545–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhou, X.-L., Marslen-Wilson, W., Taft, M., & Shu, H. (1999). Morphology, orthography, and phonology in reading Chinese. Language and Cognitive Processes, 14, 525–565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhu, Y. P. (1987). Analysis of cueing functions of the phonetic in modern China [in Chinese]. Unpublished manuscript, East China Normal University.Google Scholar