TY - JOUR
T1 - Noncompound and compound Chinese character reading
T2 - Are they the same for second-grade Hong Kong Chinese children?
AU - Liu, Yingyi
AU - Liu, Duo
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by the General Research Fund of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Research Grants Council (HKIED: GRF 18404114 ). We thank all the children, their parents and teachers, for their participation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2018/2/1
Y1 - 2018/2/1
N2 - Previous studies have not distinguished different types of characters when examining how phonological and semantic-related skills are related to Chinese reading. In this study, Chinese characters were categorized into semantic-phonetic compound and noncompound characters. In the category of semantic-phonetic compound characters, two subtypes were subdivided into regular and irregular compound characters according to the reliability of phonetic radicals. Hong Kong second graders were tested on character reading, phonological awareness and three levels of semantic-related skills (semantic radical awareness, morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge). Students' age and nonverbal IQ were controlled. The results revealed that all of the three levels of semantic-related skills were significant predictors of reading all types of characters. In contrast, phonological awareness was important only for reading two types of characters, i.e., noncompound characters and regular compound characters. The results have implications for theories of reading concerning the relative roles of phonological and semantic-related skills.
AB - Previous studies have not distinguished different types of characters when examining how phonological and semantic-related skills are related to Chinese reading. In this study, Chinese characters were categorized into semantic-phonetic compound and noncompound characters. In the category of semantic-phonetic compound characters, two subtypes were subdivided into regular and irregular compound characters according to the reliability of phonetic radicals. Hong Kong second graders were tested on character reading, phonological awareness and three levels of semantic-related skills (semantic radical awareness, morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge). Students' age and nonverbal IQ were controlled. The results revealed that all of the three levels of semantic-related skills were significant predictors of reading all types of characters. In contrast, phonological awareness was important only for reading two types of characters, i.e., noncompound characters and regular compound characters. The results have implications for theories of reading concerning the relative roles of phonological and semantic-related skills.
KW - Character type
KW - Chinese character reading
KW - Phonological awareness
KW - Semantic-related skills
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85041401573&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.lindif.2018.01.009
DO - 10.1016/j.lindif.2018.01.009
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85041401573
VL - 62
SP - 62
EP - 68
JO - Learning and Individual Differences
JF - Learning and Individual Differences
SN - 1041-6080
ER -