Abstract
Studies on Chinese dictation difficulties have focused on visual processing and phonological processing. In recent decades, attention has shifted to the ability to bind visual and auditory information. However, such studies are scarce and rarely focus on how this ability influences children’s learning and writing of Chinese characters. In this study, a group of children with Chinese dictation difficulties and a control group without such difficulties were instructed to learn rarely used Chinese characters under three learning modes: grapheme learning, syllable learning, and grapheme-syllable learning. Participants’ learning time and writing accuracy were recorded under each learning mode. Findings showed that under the grapheme learning mode, learning time and writing accuracy failed to differ significantly between the two groups. However, under the grapheme-syllable learning mode, the writing accuracy of children with dictation difficulties was significantly lower than controls. These findings, taken together, suggested that for children with dictation difficulties, learning graphemes and syllables at the same time did not improve their writing performance as much as the controls. Under the syllable learning mode, learning time and writing accuracy failed to differ significantly between the two groups. The findings contributed to a better understanding of the Chinese dictation difficulties.
Highlights
Written spelling is important for school-age children
We aimed to further explore the ability to bind visual and auditory information in children with Chinese dictation difficulties, which is crucial for language learning, especially for reading and writing Chinese (Zhang et al, 2016)
The writing performance of children with dictation difficulties would not differ significantly from children without the difficulties under grapheme learning and syllable learning, and they would not benefit from the grapheme-syllable learning as much as children without the difficulties, when compared with grapheme learning only
Summary
Written spelling is important for school-age children. In school, not being able to write puts a child in a disadvantageous position, because writing is a primary means of organizing, exploring, and developing one’s ideas as well as communicating with teachers and other classmates via assignments, exercises, and examinations. A dual-route model has emerged to explain the spelling process (Caramazza et al, 1987; Miceli, 1989; Tainturier and Rapp, 2001; Houghton and Zorzi, 2003; Rapcsak et al, 2007; Liu et al, 2008). This model assumed that spelling is accomplished through two distinct processing procedures for computing. Processing of familiar words relies on the lexical route, wherein an auditory input activates all relevant phonological representations in the mind; later, semantic representations in the lexical-semantic system are further activated. The non-lexical route processes novel words or nonwords, the auditory input transfers into graphemes according to the phoneme to grapheme conversion (PGC) mechanism
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