Longitudinal predictors of very early Chinese literacy acquisition

Given the complexity of the Chinese orthography, children may not be able to memorize a Chinese character by applying knowledge of phonics as is typical in learning English words (or other alphabetic languages). This study investigated the extent to which children’s skills in distinguishing homophones and in making use of visual-orthographic patterns might be helpful for early reading acquisition.

This 2-year longitudinal study examined both concurrent and longitudinal relations of a variety of reading-related cognitive tasks and Chinese word reading and word dictation tests among187 Hong Kong kindergarteners aged 4-6. Homophone awareness, visual skills and syllable awareness were all associated with Chinese word reading across time, but the strength of each construct in predicting word reading varied across time. Perhaps most impressive, homophone awareness was consistently associated with Chinese character recognition. However, only visual skill and syllable deletion uniquely explained early Chinese word dictation. Results extended previous research on cognitive correlates of Chinese literacy and highlighted the small but unique contribution of homophone awareness for early reading acquisition in Chinese.

Tong, X., McBride-Chang, C., Wong, A. M-Y., Shu, H., Reitsma, P., & Rispens, J. (in press). Longitudinal predictors of very early Chinese literacy acquisition. Journal of Research in Reading. Early View, Article first published online: 25 Aug 2010. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2009.01426.x.