Chinese Reading Acquisition Research Articles

Mismatch responses of basic auditory temporal processing: early predictive biomarkers of Chinese Reading

ABSTRACT The study aimed to explore whether neurophysiological measures of auditory processing in preschoolers can predict Chinese reading after going to school. Mismatch responses (MMRs) to auditory frequency, duration, and temporal pattern deviants were examined in 24 Chinese preschoolers (6.59 ± 0.25 years old). Reading abilities were tracked in Grades 2 (8.09 ± 0.29 years old) and 4 (9.65 ± 0.28 years old). We found that temporal pattern MMRs in preschoolers continuously contributed to Chinese reading fluency in Grades 2 and 4. However, MMRs to frequency or duration deviants did not predict their reading abilities in Grades 2 or 4. These findings suggest that MMRs of basic auditory temporal processing in preliterate children can serve as predictive biomarkers for future Chinese reading acquisition, thus holding promise for identifying Chinese children at risk of dyslexia before formal school education and further guiding early intervention to support their reading development.

Reading fluency as the bridge between decoding and reading comprehension in Chinese children.

Reading fluency has been considered an essential component of reading comprehension, but it is yet to be examined in a reading model in a non-alphabetic writing system. This study investigated whether reading fluency could be identified as a separate construct from decoding and examined the unique role of reading fluency in the Simple View of Reading (SVR). A total of 342 Cantonese-speaking Chinese children in grades 3-5 were recruited to participate in the study. They were assessed on word reading accuracy and fluency, morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension. The confirmatory factor analysis results confirmed that reading fluency is a separate factor from decoding, linguistic comprehension, and reading comprehension. Furthermore, the structural equation modeling results revealed that reading fluency is a significant predictor of reading comprehension and a mediator between decoding and reading comprehension in the extended SVR model. The findings extended previous research in alphabetic languages and supported reading fluency as the bridge between decoding and reading comprehension. The present study highlighted the importance of reading fluency in Chinese reading acquisition in a theoretical framework.

Concurrent and longitudinal contributions of phonological awareness to early adolescent Chinese reading acquisition

This study investigated universal and language-specific phonological awareness in reading development among Chinese early adolescent students. Seventy-six children participated in this study and completed a series of reading tasks at two data collection points across Grades 5 and 6. In Grade 5, universal phonological awareness (syllable, onset, rhyme, and phoneme awareness), language-specific phonological awareness (tone awareness) as well as character recognition and production measurements were administered to the participants. Lexical inferencing ability was measured in Grade 6. Character recognition and lexical inference were coded as the outcome variables. Subsequent multiple regression analyses showed that Time 1 (Grade 5) language-universal onset and phoneme awareness predicted character recognition and production at Time 1. More strikingly, the study demonstrated that language-specific tone awareness exerted a longitudinal effect on later lexical inferencing ability after controlling for age and nonverbal intelligence. Results underscored both the universality and language specificity of phonological awareness and provided empirical evidence to substantiate the facilitative role of early language-specific psycholinguistic grain size in later reading performance.

Cross-linguistic influence of phonological awareness and phonological recoding skills in Chinese reading acquisition among early adolescent students

This study investigated crosslinguistic phonological awareness and phonological recoding skills in Chinese reading acquisition among early Chinese adolescent students. 76 Chinese children participated in this study and finished a series of reading measurements over 1 year (from Grade 5 to Grade 6). In Grade 5, they were assessed by Chinese phonological awareness (syllable, onset, rhyme, phoneme, and tone awareness), English phonological awareness (syllable, onset, and rime, phoneme awareness) as well as English and Chinese phonological recoding skills. In Grade 6, the students completed the measurement of Chinese lexical inferencing ability. Subsequent hierarchical regression analyses showed that Time 1 (Grade 5) Chinese phonological awareness and recoding skills made a joint intra-lingual contribution to later Chinese lexical inferencing ability. Moreover, English phonological recoding skills had a unique inter-lingual contribution to later Chinese lexical inferencing ability after age, nonverbal intelligence, and English phonological awareness were controlled for. Results expanded the self-teaching hypothesis to account for variations within and across languages over time and underscored the uniqueness of inter-lingual phonological recoding in later orthographic and semantic learning.

Cognitive neuroscience research of language development: the future path and layout

<p indent=0mm>Language is unique to the human brain. Unraveling language brain development is one of the major missions of developmental cognitive neuroscience. In recent decades, significant research progress has been made in language development, reading and brain development, age effect of second language learning, genetic factors of language development. China has also made remarkable progress, especially in Chinese reading acquisition and the cognitive-neural mechanism of reading disorders. Future research may not only examine language brain development with innovative techniques but also shift paradigms to understand how the language brain develops as a self-organized system and how it is related to cognitive, emotional, and social development. By integrating genes, environment, brain, and behavior, the large-scale imaging genetic cohort study may help to transform research on language brain development. In order to advance research on language brain development in China, more efforts shall be invested in developing and adapting standardized neuropsychological instruments with reliability and validity. There is an urgent need to support sustainable capacity building and conduct research on first-class language brain development with the cutting-edge brain imaging techniques. Large-scale prospective cohort studies may well prompt original discoveries led by real needs of improving language development, disorder identification and treatment. With data of high quality being accumulated and shared properly, more innovations will be expected to better understand the brain and language development. Translational research should be given priority to provide solid support for better instructional, clinical practices, and policymaking. To meet the great challenges in scientific research and the translation, individual research interest based exploration and well-designed team collaborative research shall be combined and balanced.

Cross-Linguistic Morphological Awareness in Chinese Heritage Language Reading Acquisition.

The study aimed to explore cross-linguistic contributions of morphological awareness to Chinese reading acquisition among Chinese heritage language (CHL) learners who had grown up speaking Chinese at home, received English medium education throughout schooling, and were studying Chinese at the time of the study. The sample thus represents a growing number of heritage-language (HL) speakers in US schools whose literacy development is not yet well documented. Little is known, to date, as to how HL literacy development benefits from the linguistic and metalinguistic resources gained through early oral language exposure. In the study, college-level CHL students (N = 195) completed a series of reading measures in their dominant language (English) and heritage language (Chinese). Path analysis was employed to test the cross-linguistic relationships in morphological awareness and lexical inference ability. The findings showed that dominant-language morphological awareness was significantly related to lexical inference skills in two languages. More critically, the current study tested the direct and indirect contributions of dominant-language morphological awareness to HL lexical inference. The results showed that dominant-language morphological awareness contributed only indirectly to HL lexical inference through HL morphological awareness and dominant-language lexical inference. Based on the findings, four tentative conclusions can be drawn: morphological awareness and lexical inference skills transfer across languages; cross-linguistic interaction only occurs between corresponding subskills; transferred subskills are modified to accommodate the target language properties; and the benefits of transferred subskills are realized only through their corresponding subskills in the target language. Practical implications of the findings are also discussed regarding HL instruction and learning.

Visual Processing Matters in Chinese Reading Acquisition and Early Mathematics.

The main purpose of the present study was to investigate whether visual processing uniquely contributed to character reading and early mathematics in Chinese children. Eighty-two Chinese kindergarteners at K3 (mean age = 68 months, SD = 0.30) were followed up to grade one (mean age = 82 months, SD = 0.35) with an interval of 14 months. Nonverbal intelligence, inhibitory control, sustained attention, character reading, and mathematics were measured at kindergarten. Character reading and mathematics were assessed again at grade one. Results showed visual processing at kindergarten significantly predicted character reading at grade one after controlling for prior reading performance, inhibitory control, sustained attention, age, gender, and nonverbal IQ. Similarly, visual processing at kindergarten explained unique variance in early mathematics at grade one when prior mathematics performance and other covariates at kindergarten were controlled. These findings suggest that visual processing should serve as a domain-general precursor of children’s performance in character reading and early mathematics and an important cognitive factor for later academic learning.

The role of orthographic flexibility in Chinese word reading among kindergarten children

The present study aimed to examine the potential importance of orthographic flexibility for Chinese reading acquisition. Orthographic flexibility is a novel concept that represents the ability to manage and switch attention among multiple aspects of orthographic information. A total of 92 Chinese kindergarten children at age 6 were assessed on measures of orthographic flexibility, orthographic knowledge, executive functions (EF) skills (i.e. cognitive flexibility and working memory) and Chinese word reading. Results of hierarchical regressions showed that orthographic flexibility uniquely and significantly contributed to word reading beyond the effects of established predictors, namely orthographic knowledge and EF skills. Path analysis further indicated that orthographic flexibility significantly mediated the contribution of EF skills to word reading. These findings provided theoretical insights into the linkage between domain-general EF skills and domain-specific reading ability. The present study also provided practical implication that training on orthographic flexibility in addition to orthographic knowledge could be beneficial to early acquisition of Chinese word reading.

The brain adapts to orthography with experience: evidence from English and Chinese.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined the process of language specialization in the brain by comparing developmental changes in two contrastive orthographies: Chinese and English. In a visual word rhyming judgment task, we found a significant interaction between age and language in left inferior parietal lobule and left superior temporal gyrus, which was due to greater developmental increases in English than in Chinese. Moreover, we found that higher skill only in English children was correlated with greater activation in left inferior parietal lobule. These findings suggest that the regions associated with phonological processing are essential in English reading development. We also found greater developmental increases in English than in Chinese in left inferior temporal gyrus, suggesting refinement of this region for fine-grained word form recognition. In contrast, greater developmental increases in Chinese than in English were found in right middle occipital gyrus, suggesting the importance of holistic visual-orthographic analysis in Chinese reading acquisition. Our results suggest that the brain adapts to the special features of the orthography by engaging relevant brain regions to a greater degree over development.

Developmental changes in the role of different metalinguistic awareness skills in Chinese reading acquisition from preschool to third grade.

The present study investigated the relationship between Chinese reading skills and metalinguistic awareness skills such as phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness for 101 Preschool, 94 Grade-1, 98 Grade-2, and 98 Grade-3 children from two primary schools in Mainland China. The aim of the study was to examine how each of these metalinguistic awareness skills would exert their influence on the success of reading in Chinese with age. The results showed that all three metalinguistic awareness skills significantly predicted reading success. It further revealed that orthographic awareness played a dominant role in the early stages of reading acquisition, and its influence decreased with age, while the opposite was true for the contribution of morphological awareness. The results were in stark contrast with studies in English, where phonological awareness is typically shown as the single most potent metalinguistic awareness factor in literacy acquisition. In order to account for the current data, a three-stage model of reading acquisition in Chinese is discussed.

Visual Skills and Chinese Reading Acquisition: A Meta-analysis of Correlation Evidence

This paper used meta-analysis to synthesize the relation between visual skills and Chinese reading acquisition based on the empirical results from 34 studies published from 1991 to 2011. We obtained 234 correlation coefficients from 64 independent samples, with a total of 5,395 participants. The meta-analysis revealed that visual skills as a global construct had a medium correlation effect size (r = 0.32) associated with Chinese reading acquisition. The various visual processing skills differed in their relation to Chinese reading acquisition in different stages. Visual perception, speed of processing visual information, and pure visual memory had low-to-moderate correlations with Chinese reading acquisition in the lower grades (i.e., below second grade), whereas these relations did not retain their magnitude for children in the higher grades (i.e., second through sixth grades). By contrast, visual–verbal association skill was found to account for 34 and 41 % of the variance in children’s Chinese reading acquisition in both lower and higher grade levels, respectively. Greater attention to this construct can significantly benefit reading research and instructional practice. No regional differences between studies in Mainland China and Hong Kong were found in the meta-analysis.

Contributions of Syntactic Awareness to Reading in Chinese‐speaking Adolescent Readers with and without Dyslexia

This study investigated the relative contribution of syntactic awareness to Chinese reading among Chinese-speaking adolescent readers with and without dyslexia. A total of 78 junior high school students in Hong Kong, 26 dyslexic adolescent readers, 26 average adolescent readers of the same age (chronological age control group) and 26 younger readers matched with the same reading level (reading-level group) participated and were administered measures of IQ, syntactic awareness, morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, working memory, word reading, and reading comprehension. Results showed that dyslexic readers scored significantly lower than chronological age but similarly to reading level control groups in most measures, especially in the areas of syntactic skills. Analyses of individual data also revealed that over half of the dyslexic readers exhibited certain aspects of deficits in syntactic skills. In regression analyses, syntactic skills were the strongest predictors of ability in word reading and reading comprehension measures. This study highlights the uniquely important correlates of syntactic skills in Chinese reading acquisition and impairment.

Chinese children's character recognition: Visuo‐orthographic, phonological processing and morphological skills

Tasks tapping visual skills, orthographic knowledge, phonological awareness, speeded naming, morphological awareness and Chinese character recognition were administered to 184 kindergarteners and 273 primary school students from Beijing. Regression analyses indicated that only syllable deletion, morphological construction and speeded number naming were unique correlates of Chinese character recognition in kindergarteners. Among primary school children, the independent correlates of character recognition were rime detection, homophone judgement, morpheme production, orthographic knowledge and speeded number naming. Results underscore the importance of some dimensions of both phonological processing and morphological awareness for both very early and intermediate Chinese reading acquisition. Although significantly correlated with character recognition in younger (but not older) children, visual skills were not uniquely associated with Chinese character reading at any grade level. However, orthographic skills were strongly associated with reading in primary school but not kindergarten, suggesting that orthographic skills are more important for literacy development as reading experience increases.

Small Wins Big

The present study examined invented spelling of pinyin (a phonological coding system for teaching and learning Chinese words) in relation to subsequent Chinese reading development. Among 296 Chinese kindergartners in Beijing, independent invented pinyin spelling was found to be uniquely predictive of Chinese word reading 12 months later, even with Time 1 syllable deletion, phoneme deletion, and letter knowledge, in addition to the autoregressive effects of Time 1 Chinese word reading, statistically controlled. These results underscore the importance of children’s early pinyin representations for Chinese reading acquisition, both theoretically and practically. The findings further support the idea of a universal phonological principle and indicate that pinyin is potentially an ideal measure of phonological awareness in Chinese.

The role of visual and auditory temporal processing for Chinese children with developmental dyslexia

This study examined temporal processing in relation to Chinese reading acquisition and impairment. The performances of 26 Chinese primary school children with developmental dyslexia on tasks of visual and auditory temporal order judgement, rapid naming, visual-orthographic knowledge, morphological, and phonological awareness were compared with those of 26 reading level ability controls (RL) and 26 chronological age controls (CA). Dyslexic children performed worse than the CA group but similar to the RL group on measures of accurate processing of auditory and visual-order stimuli, rapid naming, morphological awareness, and phonological awareness and a minority performed worse on the two temporal processing tasks. However, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that visual but not auditory temporal processing contributed unique variance to Chinese character recognition even with other cognitive measures controlled, suggesting it may be as important a correlate of reading ability in Chinese as in alphabetic scripts.

The role of phonological awareness and visual-orthographic skills in Chinese reading acquisition.

This study examined the role of phonological awareness and visual-orthographic skills in Chinese reading acquisition. The subjects were 154 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th graders in Beijing who had learned an alphabetic script known as Hanyu Pinyin to help read Chinese characters. Children's performance on tests of various cognitive skills, reading ability, and pinyin knowledge were examined. Results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that (a) visual skills predicted reading success at lower grades; (b) pinyin knowledge and the ability to discriminate homophonic characters predicted reading success in Grades 2, 3, and 5; and (c) onset-rime awareness, but not phonemic awareness, predicted Chinese reading. This suggests that learning to read Chinese progresses from a logographic phase to an orthographic-phonological phase and that the nature of phonological awareness predicting reading success is contingent on the characteristics of the writing system.

The role of phonological awareness and visual-orthographic skills in Chinese reading acquisition.

The role of phonological awareness and visual-orthographic skills in Chinese reading acquisition.

A Longitudinal Study of Phonological Awareness, Visual Skills, and Chinese Reading Acquisition among First-graders in Taiwan

The main purpose of this study was to investigate whether a child’s phonological awareness and visual skills before instruction in school had any predictive power for later Chinese reading ability among 1st-graders in Taiwan. The study also examined the extent to which phonological awareness and visual skills varied in three separate testing sessions during the 1st grade. These testing sessions took place just before the children had learned the alphabetic system Zhu-Yin-Fu-Hao, immediately after the children had learnt Zhu-Yin-Fu-Hao, and, finally, at the end of the first year of schooling. Forty 6-year-old Chinese children from Taiwan took part in the study. The test materials included a Chinese Characters Reading Test, a set of Phonological Awareness tests, a Visual Paired Associates learning test, and a vocabulary and IQ test. Phonological awareness at the first testing session was found to be significantly related to the ability to read Chinese characters at the end of the first year. However, the predictive power of early phonological awareness decreased markedly when the effects of preschool reading scores were partialled out. Therefore, the study provided evidence that phonological processes are significantly related to success in the first year of Chinese reading, but was unable to establish whether or not differences in phonological skills are a cause of differences in the reading ability of Chinese children. In addition 10 weeks of instruction in Zhu-Yin-Fu-Hao led to an increase in performance on all tests of phonological awareness. This is consistent with the view that learning an alphabetic script improves phonological awareness ability.