The Role of Phonological Processing in Early Reading Ability: What We Can Learn From Chinese

Abstract

Research has demonstrated that there is a strong relation between children's phonological processing skills and their ability to learn to read an alphabetic orthography. It is unclear whether this relation is specific to an alphabetic orthography or whether it extends as well to logographic orthographies such as Chinese. In this study, a group of Chinese 1st graders were administered three measures of phonological processing, including phonological memory, phonological awareness, and phonological retrieval. A visual memory task was also included. Two weeks later, the children were administered 2 reading tasks. One assessed their ability to read familiar and less familiar words printed in the Chinese alphabet. The other assessed their ability to read familiar and less familiar Chinese characters. Results showed that children's performance on the visual memory task was not related to their performance on either of the reading measures. In contrast, performance on the phonological measures was related to performance on both reading tasks. These results suggest that the relation between phonological processing skills and early reading ability is not specific to reading an alphabetic orthography. This relation extends to a logographic orthography as well.