The developmental trend of orthographic awareness in Chinese preschoolers

Abstract

The present study explored the developmental trend of orthographic awareness in Chinese-speaking preschoolers. A total of 184 children between 3 and 5 years of age participated in the study. Two developmental patterns of orthographic awareness were obtained. One pattern was dependent on a traditional Chinese orthographic hierarchy, with a sequence of writing system specificity, radical, whole character, radical combination rules, and stroke. Three-year-olds fully understood the writing-system-specific features of Chinese characters, and could distinguish characters from alphabetic scripts and drawings; the average accuracy was [80 %.Five-year-olds were able to distinguish radicals from numbers, as well as regard non-characters with rotated radicals and missing radicals as illegal; the average accuracy was 87 %. At 5 years of age, children could detect whole character rotated non-characters with an average accuracy of 78 %, but were not proficient in identifying non-characters with absent strokes (the average accuracy was 69 %). The 5-year-old children did not know well about radical combination rules; the average accuracy was 67 %. The other pattern was associated with violation means of noncharacters, which could be characterized as progressing from form types, to spatial formats, and finally to combination conventions. Children grasped legal form types of scripts (Chinese characters and radicals) at 3 years of age, with an average accuracy approaching 80 %. Five-year-old children detected illegal spatial characteristics of characters, such as up-down reversal, with an average accuracy of 78 %. However, children were unable to understand radical combination conventions even at 5 years of age; average accuracy was 67 %.

Statistical learning and spelling: Evidence from Brazilian prephonological spellers

“…The written words of a language can be conceptualized as patterns of letters rather than as representations of language, and early learning of graphotactic patterns seems to occur in similar ways for children exposed to a shallower alphabetic writing system, Portuguese, and children exposed to a deep alphabetic writing system, English. Indeed, some findings suggest that learning of visual patterns occurs in similar ways in Chinese, which differs substantially from alphabetic writing systems in how it represents language (e.g., Luo, Chen, Deacon, & Li, 2011; Qian, Song, Zhao, & Bi, 2015; Tong & McBride-Chang, 2014). …”

Morphological awareness predicts the growth rate of Chinese character reading

“…Children gradually get access to, understand, and build morphemic knowledge during the learning process. Visual-spatial skills (Lin, Sun, & Zhang, 2016), orthographic awareness (e.g., Qian, Song, Zhao, & Bi, 2015), and phonological awareness (e.g., Li et al, 2012) have been found to be significant predictors of Chinese reading development in previous studies, given the heavy reliance on visual-orthographic information for learning of the Chinese script and the activation of phonological information in Chinese reading. Nonverbal IQ was included in the study as a general cognitive control for reading ability (e.g., McBride-Chang et al, 2003;Tong et al, 2011).…”

“…Nonverbal IQ was included in the study as a general cognitive control for reading ability (e.g., McBride-Chang et al, 2003;Tong et al, 2011). Visual-spatial skills (Lin, Sun, & Zhang, 2016), orthographic awareness (e.g., Qian, Song, Zhao, & Bi, 2015), and phonological awareness (e.g., Li et al, 2012) have been found to be significant predictors of Chinese reading development in previous studies, given the heavy reliance on visual-orthographic information for learning of the Chinese script and the activation of phonological information in Chinese reading. These variables were included in the study.…”

Chinese children's early knowledge about writing

“…We therefore provide evidence, stronger than that presented by Qian et al . (), that Chinese children as young as 3 years know about some general graphic characteristics of their writing system. Such graphic knowledge appears to emerge in learners of Chinese at similar ages as in learners of alphabetic writing systems (Lavine, ; Treiman et al ., ).…”

“…With regard to outer form, we know of only one study to have tested Chinese‐speaking children younger than 5 years. In this study, Qian, Song, Zhao, and Bi () asked 3‐ to 5‐year‐olds whether various displays, including common Chinese characters, pictures, and English words, were well‐written Chinese characters. Qian et al .…”