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

TLDR

The study administered tasks assessing visual, orthographic, phonological, speeded naming, and morphological skills, as well as Chinese character recognition, to 184 kindergarteners and 273 primary school students in Beijing. In kindergarteners, syllable deletion, morphological construction, and speeded number naming uniquely predict character recognition, while in primary school children, rime detection, homophone judgment, morpheme production, orthographic knowledge, and speeded number naming are independent predictors; visual skills correlate but are not uniquely associated at any grade, and orthographic skills become more important as reading experience increases.

Abstract

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.