Direct effects of visual skills and working memory on Chinese character reading in young children

Yang, Xiujie; Qiao, Linyan

doi:10.1002/icd.2231

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 69 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The two studies used the “Chinese Character Recognition Test Battery and Assessment Scale for Primary School Children” compiled by Wang and Tao (1996) to measure children's Chinese character reading. After conversion, the proportions of total characters were 12.24% and 37.73%, respectively (Yang and Qiao, 2021; Yang et al, 2018). Other studies using self-compiled Chinese character recognition tests found that children in K3 could recognize about 25–83% of the total characters.…”

Section: “Readiness Level”: Quantity Of Characters In Children's Chin...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The difficulty and challenge in Chinese children’s character reading: An analysis based on Chinese curriculum standards and Chinese character reading research

Liu,

Wang,

Wang

et al. 2023

Journal of Chinese Writing Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Chinese character reading is the focus of Chinese teaching in the lower grades of primary school, and it is also a difficult point and challenging problem in the transition from kindergartens (K3) to primary school. To understand the learning slope of children's Chinese character reading in this transition, this study assessed the requirements of Chinese curriculum standards for compulsory education over the years based on the number of Chinese characters being learned by children in the lower grades of primary school. The results showed that the requirement of 1600 Chinese characters was, is, and will be the “should level” required at this stage of education. Comparing it with the levels achieved by children in kindergartens and primary schools in the empirical research from 2005 to 2021, it was found that the slope of children's Chinese character reading was not in the transition between K3 and Grade 1 but rather between Grades 1 and 2. The study proposed that to alleviate the slope in this transition, we should pay more attention to Chinese character teaching in Grade 2, improve the abilities of Grade 2 students’ Chinese character reading, and help them reach the requirements of the curriculum standards, in order to prevent the pressure of Chinese character reading from Grade 2 flooding back into Grade 1, causing parents to worry about their children's Chinese character reading before entering primary school.

show abstract

Section: “Readiness Level”: Quantity Of Characters In Children's Chin...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The difficulty and challenge in Chinese children’s character reading: An analysis based on Chinese curriculum standards and Chinese character reading research

Liu,

Wang,

Wang

et al. 2023

Journal of Chinese Writing Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Domain-general cognitive skills include memory and non-verbal intelligence which involve non-language-specific reasoning. Kindergarten domain-general cognitive skills are consistent contributors to reading and passage comprehension in English and Chinese monolinguals, across primary and secondary grade levels (Adlof et al, 2010;Yang & Qiao, 2021). Code-related and domain-general cognitive skills also typically show a correlation (Oakhill & Kyle, 2000).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Precursors of Literacy Development in Simultaneous Bilinguals: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Bhalloo

Molnar

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Several literacy precursors have been identified in monolingual English-speaking children; however, it is unclear whether the same precursors are also associated with literacy development in bilingual children. Purpose: We examine whether in simultaneous bilingual children: (i) code-related, oral-language, and domain-general cognitive literacy precursors have been utilized, similar to monolingual children; (ii) other types of precursors have been identified; (iii) code-related, oral-language, domain-general cognitive, or other types of literacy precursors are associated with word/non-word and/or text-level reading skills; in (a) one or (b) both spoken languages; (iv) the type of literacy outcome measure, and (v) language background measure influence performance on emergent literacy skills. Method: We examined reported statistical associations, between a given literacy precursor and outcome measure, and conducted a meta-analysis examining specific code-related and oral-language precursors in relation to word/non-word reading and/or text reading comprehension. Results: Apart from semantic awareness, all code-related, oral-language, domain-general cognitive and eight additional identified precursors were significantly associated with reading in simultaneous bilinguals. However, these precursors were predominantly assessed only in English, or English in addition to a heritage language. Phonological awareness and vocabulary emerged as commonly-assessed precursors consistently associated with reading. Conclusions: Particularly, these code-related and oral-language skills may be used as precursor screening tools in simultaneous bilinguals, across heritage and societal languages. Future research should develop language-specific precursor screening tools and investigate the reliability of non-linguistic precursors, to address the evident English assessment bias and support biliteracy development across spoken languages.

show abstract

Effects of working memory and visual search skill on Chinese reading comprehension: examining the simple view of reading

Liu,

Li,

Zhang

et al. 2024

Read Writ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To investigate the longitudinal effects of two domain-general cognitive abilities, namely verbal working memory and visual search skill, on Chinese reading comprehension. To evaluate whether decoding and linguistic comprehension mediate such effects. A total of 202 first-grade Chinese-speaking children from mainland China (Mage = 86 months, SD = 4.9 months; 126 boys) completed tasks that measured verbal working memory, visual search, expressive vocabulary, morphological awareness, Chinese character recognition, and word reading fluency. One year later, they completed a passage comprehension task and a nonverbal intelligence test. Structural equation modeling was conducted with decoding and linguistic comprehension being included as latent variables and mediating factors explaining the effects of working memory and visual search. The children with better verbal working memory and visual search skill exhibited better reading comprehension performance. The effect of working memory on reading comprehension was fully mediated by linguistic comprehension (captured by vocabulary and morphological awareness) but not decoding (measured by word reading accuracy and fluency). However, decoding fully mediated the impact of visual search skill. Our findings suggest that the reading comprehension ability of beginning Chinese readers is associated with verbal working memory and visual search ability. These general cognitive abilities influence reading comprehension through distinct pathways. In line with the simple view of reading theory, decoding and linguistic comprehension skills explain such impacts. This research underlines the value of simultaneously examining general cognitive abilities and exploring their interconnectedness with linguistic skills in the context of reading comprehension.

show abstract

Direct effects of visual skills and working memory on Chinese character reading in young children

Cited by 4 publications

References 69 publications

The difficulty and challenge in Chinese children’s character reading: An analysis based on Chinese curriculum standards and Chinese character reading research

The difficulty and challenge in Chinese children’s character reading: An analysis based on Chinese curriculum standards and Chinese character reading research

Early Precursors of Literacy Development in Simultaneous Bilinguals: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Effects of working memory and visual search skill on Chinese reading comprehension: examining the simple view of reading

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About