Reading depends on writing, in Chinese

Abstract

Language development entails four fundamental and interactive abilities: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Over the past four decades, a large body of evidence has indicated that reading acquisition is strongly associated with a child's listening skills, particularly the child's sensitivity to phonological structures of spoken language. Furthermore, it has been hypothesized that the close relationship between reading and listening is manifested universally across languages and that behavioral remediation using strategies addressing phonological awareness alleviates reading difficulties in dyslexics. The prevailing view of the central role of phonological awareness in reading development is largely based on studies using Western (alphabetic) languages, which are based on phonology. The Chinese language provides a unique medium for testing this notion, because logographic characters in Chinese are based on meaning rather than phonology. Here we show that the ability to read Chinese is strongly related to a child's writing skills and that the relationship between phonological awareness and Chinese reading is much weaker than that in reports regarding alphabetic languages. We propose that the role of logograph writing in reading development is mediated by two possibly interacting mechanisms. The first is orthographic awareness, which facilitates the development of coherent, effective links among visual symbols, phonology, and semantics; the second involves the establishment of motor programs that lead to the formation of long-term motor memories of Chinese characters. These findings yield a unique insight into how cognitive systems responsible for reading development and reading disability interact, and they challenge the prominent phonological awareness view.dyslexia ͉ phonological awareness ͉ reading development ͉ child language ͉ reading Chinese

Arithmetic processing in the brain shaped by cultures

“…Importantly, much larger brain activation was found at a region in-between BA6, BA8, and BA9 in NCS. We termed this region as a premotor association area (PMA), which has been previously associated with visuo-spatial processing and various functions more closely related to cognitive than to motor processes in humans and nonhuman primates as well (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18).…”

“…For example, the strong involvement of visuopremotor association in NCS may be related to the experience of reading Chinese characters (15,28). A Chinese character is composed of strokes and subcharacters that are packed into a square configuration, possessing a high, nonlinear visual complexity.…”

Enhancement of brain event-related potentials to speech sounds is associated with compensated reading skills in dyslexic children with familial risk for dyslexia

“…It has been shown to be a good predictor of reading speed in several languages, regardless of orthographical transparency (e.g., Georgiou, Parrila, & Papadopoulos, 2008;Tan et al, 2005). Previously, there have been no studies exploring the relationship of infant brain responses and RAN.…”

Writing affects the brain network of reading in Chinese: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study

“…writing previously presented characters from memory) differs in young children with high or low overall literacy skill in Hong Kong [Pak et al, 2005]. Another study found that skill in copying Chinese pseudocharacters was highly correlated with reading scores in children, even with phonological processing skills statistically controlled [Tan et al, 2005b]. A study of Chinese dyslexic children also found that writing and reading are highly correlated [Chan et al, 2006].…”